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AFTERWARD 


BY 



MARY HARRIOTT t^ORRlS 

AUTHOR OF 


“Phebb,” “Dorothy Delafield,’’ “A Damsee of^ the Eighteenth 
Century.” 







Mlt 10 IT 


^ M il 




ST. PAUL 

The Price-McGill GompanT; 

. 189 2 




■ l; 

COPYKIGHTED 1892 

BY 

THE PRICH-McGTLL CO* 


PBINTED AKD PLATED BY 

THE PRICE-McGILL COMPANY 

8T. PATTT., IVnVX. 



J 




• ■ .V 


DEDICATION. 

This story of a struggle toward a higher life 
is dedicated by the author to 
PRISCILLA LEE BENNETT, 
whose love of 

"^whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, 
whatsoever things are lovely f* 
has made her a blessing to the world. • 


9 


CONTENTS 


BOOK ONE. 

CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I — A Gathering Storm, -9 

II — The Garden Party, 19 

III — Desolation, - - -36 

IV — In Prison, 30 

V— Jacob Middleton, 61 

VI— A Double Loss, - - , 68 

VII — Retrospection, - - - - - - - -84 

VIII-The Prison Lady, 97 

IX — New Scenes, - - - - -108 

X — The Tables are Tuni.d, -------125 

XI— Nice, ----- 149 

BOOK TWO. - 

Im-A Heidelberg Episode, 173 

II — A Revelation, -190 

III — Deep Sea Sounding.s, - 210 

IV — An Encounter, 243 

V — Rosalia, --- 257 

VI — An Understanding, 273 

VII — From Liverpool to New York, - - - - - - 281 

BOOK THREE. 

I — A Distinguished Family, ------- 311 

II — Familv Conclaves, - - - 332 

III — Up Stairs, Down Stairs, In My Lady’s Ciiaaijcr, - 359 

IV — The Chubbock Reception, ------ 374 

V — A Ride in the Park, --- 410 

VI— A Climax, - « - - - ‘ 420 

VII — Various Announcements, ------- 428 

V HI— Isabel, --441 

IX — Running the Gauntlet, - - - - - - -^457 

X — A Wedding, - 467 



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V 


CHAPTER L 


A GATHERING STORM. 

In that part of the Hudson river valley where the 
mountains divide the back-ground into three groups 
as unlike and contrasting as the Jura, with their 
ever purple velvet sweep, are different from the Alps 
which face them, on a wide stretch of upland, sloping 
gently from the river, and in the middle of an exten- 
sive lawn, stands Silverbirch. It is a mansion with 
so many porches, balconies and piazzas, that it looks 
as though it might take wings any moment. 

Silverbirch had been the home for three generations 
of the same family, and each had added to it, till it 
was full of wide halls and unexpected narrow ones, 
big rooms and little ones, low ceilings and high ones, 
and spread so many roomy wings that it baflied 
architectural nomenclature. 

The place was the joy and pride of Mrs. Winchester. 
To most women, their home is their personal ex- 
pression. It is their creation. It is a shelter* for 

9 * 


10 


AFTERWARD. 


the best placed women have a congenital fear of the 
reverse, and women who have ever been homeless 
love home passionately. 

Mrs. Winchester was at once tenacious and intense 
in her attachment to Silverbirch. As an intellectual 
woman, however, she was not content with her Lares 
and Penates alone. But, while constantly seeking 
mental stimulus, she met all social claims with the 
hearty spontaneou.sness of a strong and varied nat- 
ure. She was proud, ambitious, and self-confident, 
delighting, therefore, to give more than she received. 
She gave right royally of her time, her hospitality, 
and her overflowing, buoyant personality. A woman 
like this has troops of friends ; she has, among those 
friends, many a latent antagonist. 

Society watched her with a comfortable sense of 
proprietorship. She was its possession, to all in tents 
and purposes — to be visited, to be invited, to be in- 
vaded. 

But she led. She had the instinctive art of a leader, 
with the added endowment of beauty and fine man- 
ners. Society, never finding a truly good occasion 
when its envy could advise a frown, smiled; smiled 
on her for ten, sweet, glad, prosperous years of mar- 
ried life. 

She had not been to the manner born, but .she had 
been to the manner bred, which is sometimes far bet- 
ter, inclining a woman to render herself universally 


ai<‘terward. 


ii 


agreeable. Still, vsociety never forgot that it had re- 
ceived her, not because she had been Madeline Carew, 
but because she became Mrs. Henry Winchester. Her 
husband had opened a circle to her to which her fa- 
ther’s sterling qualities were a bootless sesame. As 
soon as she discovered how much it resembled other 
circles less pretentious, she gave her individuality full 
scope. It was not long be/ore the woman who had 
been received was the arbiter. She took a generous, 
yet willful pleasure in opening doors for those whose 
claims were akin to her own, though not as strong. 
Finding the social tufa, though somewhat uncertain 
beneath her step, yet sufficiently firm to bear her for 
ten years, she forgot that such ground may cover 
volcanoes. 

It was late September, and Mrs. Winchester deter- 
mined to give a garden party that should eclipse any 
similar and previous effort among her friends. She 
sent invi tations to Lenox, to Newport, to Long Island, 
and the Jersey shore. 

Henry Winchester was a typical nineteenth-century 
man in his material ambitions. Not content with a 
name that father and grandfather had borne up- 
rightly, or with a fortune that allowed him luxurious 
establishments in city and country, he had a feverish 
desire for boundless wealth. His cheek burned in the 
night, not over his extortions, but because stocks 


12 


AFTERWARD. 


had declined, because lie had failed to water to the 
utmost the monopolies he controlled, or had believed 
in “shorts” when “longs” had triumphed. 

There came a crisis in the tenth year of his married 
life. He speculated with a widow’s property he held 
in trust, and saw it swept away in a day. In a 
remote New England school were two orphan girls 
for whom he was trustee. He involved their fortune 
in a “corner,” which broke. Then came a third 
temptation. He was accustomed to invest his wife’s 
money, the slow accumulations of forty years of 
moderate living on the part of her parents. He sold 
her bonds, manipulating her one hundred thousand 
dollars till they promised to increase five-fold. Then 
this venture fluctuated for weeks, increasing and de- 
creasing, until, one unlucky morning, all disappeared 
in a corn maelstrom. 

Unable to obtain money otherwise, he mortgaged 
his city home for its full value, and cast this die in the 
pool of a transcontinental railway. A month later 
it was transferred to a broker, to whom every one 
of his losses had been a gain. 

There came a time when nothing was left but 
the country home. The young man still expected to 
retrieve himself. He studied combinations as he had 
never done before. 

It was at this juncture that his wife asked for a 
check for a thousand dollars. 


AFTERWARD. 


13 


He could have groaned aloud. Nevertheless, his 
pride and hope and belief in his ultimate success, in- 
vested even his despair with a romantic humor. 

“So you want a thousand dollars, Madeline. To- 
day ? 

“Yes, Henry.’* 

“To-day.” There was a lengthening, a settling of 
his face, that she remembered afterward. ' 

“Can’t you have things charged ? ” 

She shrugged her shoulders. “Would you rather 
have me wait a few days ? ” 

“No, oh no! Come to the library, and I will write 
the check for you. I suppose you want to deposit it, 
and draw on it a little at a time, at need? ” 

They walked hand in hand to the library — Made- 
line with a glad silence, Henry wondering why she 
could not have asked, “if it be convenient.” The 
very qliality of her belief that she could have it, if not 
to-day, to-morrow, prevented him from confiding in 
her. He could not have confided to her his specula- 
tions and losses, but he couM have told her that he 
was temporarily short of money.' But she took her 
whole life, her wifehood, his wealth, his power, so 
exuberantly for granted, and it pleased him so much 
to have it so, that, if she had asked him for far more, 
he would have added it to that check. 

What was he about to do? To give a check when 
bad n’t a penny in the bank ? He did not fear that 


14 


AFTERWARD. 


she would have trouble with it; it would be honored. 
But, he had never done this thing; it had a lurking, 
unmentionable name that he hushed his conscience 
from uttering. His cheek paled as he wrote the 
amount. 

“You are not well, dear.” She passed her hand 
caress ingl}’^ over his brow. 

He caught it, and kissed it passionately. 

“Well, Madeline? Wh3% I never was better. Are 
you going to the city to-day ? ” 

“Yes. That is why I want the money to-day,” she 
said brightly. Then seeing a flush pass over his face, 
she added, “I am sure you don’t feel well. Let us 
both stay home.” 

“No, but I will come back early.” He gave her a 
momentary, wild glance, as if in search of protec- 
tion. 

How long it takes one who has been the protected 
to recognize the first voiceless appeals of desperation! 
How slow we all are to see the painful need of a man 
panting to be saved from himself! How seldom we 
give till we are literally asked! But oh, how the 
longing, speaking glance of an eye, the mute quiver 
of a lip, even the trembling of a hand that is usualH 
steady, will come back to us to haunt us after we 
have read the agony of those signals in the misfort- 
une or retribution which follows the playing with 
temptation. 


AFTERWARD. 


15 


They parted. He, since he had drawn that check, 
to have another thought suggested to him, which 
nestled in his brain, and urged itself upon his atten- 
tion, until he vsecmed like two persons. 

There is a painting by Domenichino in the Rospig- 
liose palace, in Rome, which affords the observer a 
vivid intellectual conception of Satan. There is the 
conventional apple tree, though tall in its umbra- 
geousness. There is a wide landscape, over which va- 
rious animals are grouped. A lowering sky broods 
over the scene. The animals look foreboding. Wound 
around the trunk of the tree is the serpent. Under 
the tree are Adam and Eve. Eve is in the act of pre- 
^senting the forbidden fruit to Adam. The merit and 
vsuggestiveness of the picture arc concentrated in the 
tone of the landscape, the apprehension of the ani- 
mals, but, above all, in the sidelong, intent, specula- 
tive, intellectual gazeofthat spirit of evil. That look 
presents a breathless balance of possibilities. Even 
the serpent is unable to forecast the issue. 

As Henry Winchester sat upright in the fast ex- 
press, his newspaper before him, his e^^es galloping 
from item to item, but his mind revolving ways and 
means with the resistless motor power of a machine, 
that old painting rose suddenly before him, He could 
not deceive himself any longer oyer the quality of hi§ 


16 


.AFTERWARD. 


self-parle3"ing. What he should do that day he would 
do with his eyes open. Gold was in one scale, honor 
in the other. 

Now he had been in such long and intimate rela- 
tions with a staid uncle of Madeline, that, on the 
plea of a loan for a few hours accommodation, he had 
frequently presented a note for the older gentleman 
to endorse. These notes were on a bank where each 
kept an account. Such was Mr. Middleton’s confi- 
dence, that he had often delayed to verify the amounts 
till a convenient moment, and especially as his 
nephew, through the frequent connection of their af- 
fairs, was always acquainted with his deposits. 

Before leaving the train, Henry had decided to en- 
ter Mr. Middleton’s office hurriedly and ask his in- 
dorsement of a note for five thousand dollars. To 
this sum, he would add a cipher, making it fifty thou- 
sand dollars. With fifty thousand dollars in cash he 
believed he knew of an operation in wheat in which 
there was certain success. Silverbirch would be 
saved. 

As his uncle was slightly deaf, he trusted to be able 
to convince the lender that he had asked for fifty 
thousand dollars instead of five thousand (Jollars. 
After he had made this compact with his evil genius, 
he was able to read his paper attentively. 


AFTERWARD. 


17 


That day the note on which he had borrowed ten 
times the amount that Mr. Middleton had supposed, 
won him double its value. 

Meanwhile, the old gentleman decided to go to 
Saratoga for a fortnight. Henry asked him, inci- 
dentally, to sign a couple of blank notes. He com- 
plied without hesitation. 

In a few days, by means of hazarding half of Mr. 
Middleton’s possessions, he was able to lift the entire 
mortgage from his city house, and clear his conscience 
of widow’s tears and orphans’ need. 

How exciting the game was! Too exciting. His 
brain felt all light and heat and clearness. 

One more stake with the balance of Jacob Middle- 
ton’s deposits, and he would redeem the outstanding 
notes, destroy every witness of his crime, and turn 
his back on the temptations of Wall and Broad 
streets. 

He filled out the remaining note for every cent his 
aged friend had uninvested- He also persuaded the 
bank president to hypothecate his own note for an 
additional hundred thousand. 

Now came another temptation. 

He knew the combination of Jacob Middleton’s 
safe. In this safe were bonds that Mr. Middleton 
had reserved for years as a fund for extreme old age,^ 


18 


AFTERWARD. 


in case the remainder of his property, which was 
often wholly invested in his general business inter- 
ests, was swept away. 

He examined these bonds, and, finding that the 
coupons were not payable in six months, the impulse 
to steal became irresistible. He sold them, obtaining 
ai other seventy-five thousand dollars. 

In a spirit of secrecy which his need engendered, he 
nervously and recklessly preferred this expedient, to 
betrajdng his cramped condition to any of his busi- 
ness friends. If there were a break between Jacob 
Middleton and hiniself, Madeline would never know 
the reason. No man would disgrace another to his 
wife, least of all, one who loved Madeline so ten- 
derly. 

If, in case this final speculation failed, and it took 
everything he had now redeemed to cancel the notes, 
repay the bank, and replace the value of the bonds, 
should his theft be discovered, still, there would be 
his wife’s money, which he had not only replaced but 
doubled. 

In all his reckoning, he never allowed for a sudden 
and violent explosion from the man whom he had 
•vronged. 


0 


CHAPTER 11. 


THE GARDEN PARTY. 

The day was idyllic. 

A voluminous mist i^olled up from the river early in 
the morning, covering the numerous valleys, and, 
later, raying out in myriad rifts like golden thrones, 
now around the foot-hills of the mountains, now 
around some commanding knoll crowned .with a 
room\" homestead. Higher and higher it mounted, 
until it shifted off in clouds up the deep blue sides of 
the Fjshkillsjdnto the passes between the Catskills, 
and blended with the opal lights forever hovering 
around the tops of theShawangunka. Then the long, 
golden day began. 

Henry gave himself up like a boy to the house dec- 
orations. He followed the men from tree to tree as 
they suspended Chinese lanterns. He watched the 
tables spread in arbors and summer-houses. He su- 
perintended the vast dancing-floor laid on a stretch 
of level lawn commanding a fine view of the river. 
He looked up at the deep blue sky and thought how 
divine the moonlight would be flashing on the river, 


20 


AFTERWARD. 


He made up his mind to set conventionality aside, as 
host, and to have one dance that night with his 
wife, which would bring back the ecstacy of those 
long-ago days, when each knew that the other loved 
while everything remained unspoken. 

And Madeline. 

She washed and dressed her bab}' that morning, 
as she always did, with her own hands, and ^^et lin- 
gered over the bath, kissing the rosy, dimpled feet and 
shoulders wet with the sweet, eool water, eooing 
over the dainty little ereature, and looking up with 
glad delight when her husband eame in, and saying, 
as she glaneed from him to their daughter, “How 
mueh she does look like you, Henry! I am so glad 
our girl is like you. May you be as good, my own 
darling! ” and she kissed the tiny thing ferYentl3^ 

He turned away, sighing profoundl^^ Moral dis- 
tinctions swept over him with sudden, appalling 
foree. He turned baek, and with a look and energy 
that were tragieal, said, “She looks like 3"ou, Made- 
line. There is nothing of me in her. Both the ehil- 
dren are like you.’* 

She laid the baby down, and, hurrying to her hus- 
band, said, “How serious you are over a trifle, dear. 
They will ehange a dozen times before they are 
grown. But the baby does look like you. What 


A-I^TERWARto. 


21 


lovers we are ! Think dear, ten years of happiness ! 
It I never had any more, I do not think I would com- 
plain.” 

“Have I been a good husband to you, Madeline?” 

“Such a good husband!” Her words died away 
in a crowning kiss, while she pulled his face toward 
her and held it between both hands. “There, now 
go away, or I shan't accomplish a thing,” and with 
another earnest kiss, she left him, and, picking her 
baby up and motioning him fondly away, she began 
to dress its dainty limbs. 

They saw little of each other during the remainder 
of the day. 

Toward night, the extensive grounds had assumed 
a strange fantastic blending of summer splendor and 
autumn richness. Nature and art joined, and arbors 
laden with clustering grapes were still sw'eeter with 
the scent of roses. Flowers of all kinds were lavished 
everywhere. The great dancing platform was set in 
a border of chrysanthemums and scarlet sage. Vines 
trailed from the trees. Golden rod and clematis 
mingled their pomp and fragility where the light 
would flash strongly on some statue-crowned ped- 
estal. Eveiw where the most fantastic effects were 
produced. A long, winding walk, simulating the 
covered paths in the Bois de Boulogne, and reaching 
from the house to the river, was made by wild grape- 
vines and supple branches stretched and woven from 


22 


AFTERWARD. 


tree to tree of a stately evergreen promenade. Au- 
tumn leaves of brilliant hues were strewn over the 
floors where the tables were spread, and colored 
lights were skillfulh' hung where they would give 
some added richness to the general effect. 

The night fell with the softness and stillness of mid~ 
summer. Not a breath stirred the leaves, sufficiently 
thinned to give an ethereal fragility to the foliage. 

Groups of violinists were seated at intervals under 
the trees, and the time so carefully arranged that no 
two sets performed simultaneouvsly. Choral boys 
had been brought from New York, and every now 
and then their clear, high-keyed, resonant voices 
broke out in glad strains that made the whole en- 
vironment enchanting. On the many piazzas, aeoHa i 
harps had been so constructed, that the lightes_ 
breeze in any direction might produce wild, and 
broken strains, like organ notes played faintly in the 
upper air. 

Madeline stepped to her window, when her toilet 
had been completed. She lingered there, waiting for 
her husband to see her before she descended. 

Her glossy, nut-brown hair was twisted in a soft, 
full braid, low in her graceful neck. Her colorless, 
but healthy complexion was animated by her clear, 
proud, hazel e^^es, slightly dilated now, and survey- 
ing the scene with a half-triumphant, somewhat 
child-like expression. She liked it all, immensely. 


AFTERWARD. 


2a 


She liked her own place in the coming pageant. Her 
twenty-nine years of happy life had sat so lightly 
that she was as calmly unconscious as a child of the 
usual sobering flight of time. She still enjoyed, im- 
agined, and hoped viv'idly. 

Her husband entered presently. His face had a 
narrowness and incipient sharpness that prevented 
it from being altogether handsome. His brown e\^es, 
while clear, had no depth.. They were like a shady 
well down which one looks in vain for the sparkle 
and shimmer of water, and whose mysterious ob- 
scurity awakens fear. Some one had told Madeline, 
once, that her eyes were like her hu.s band’s, but she 
had artlessly and truthfully replied that they might 
be alike in color, but that it did not seem to her that 
her eyes could express his thoughts. There was a 
vague expression, so fleeting, and yet so often present 
about his mouth, that, if he had been a woman, he 
would doubtless have been called vain. He had 
something of the sleek, alert, passionless look of the 
greyhound, and in consequence always appeared 
very high-bred and self-contained. 

She regarded him with complacent satisfaction. 
Then, with a pretty, questioning smile, “Does my 
dress please you, Henry ? ” 

She spread her hands out, unconsciously, over the 
front, — a thin, gauzy material, finely inwoven with 


24 


after Ward. 


silver threads,— and, turning her head slightly, 
glanced down over her pale blue velvet petticoat. 

“Do you notice this opal necklace, dear?^’ She 
lifted her chin slightly, to indicate the slender band 
around her throat. “I did not want to wear them, 
but they are the one perfect set of jewels for this 
skirt. Strange, isn't it, what a general superstition 
there is about opals! And see, Henry, I am sure I 
have rings enough on to suit you, to-night.” She 
clasped her hands on his breast, and just then a flash 
of light from the hall through the open door touched 
the rings, and her fingers seemed ablaze with precious 
stones. 

“You look regal, Madeline, and yet wonderfully 
girlish. Your splendid health, I suppose.” 

He watched her with a side-long, guilty kind of 
pride, as she turned from him a little later, saying, 
“I must go down now. Don’t linger, dear. Our 
guests will be coming very soon, and you must be 
beside me, to receive the very first one.” 

Presently the Chinese lanterns were lighted. The 
yellow moon, half full, an aureole of outline around 
its other half, hung in neighborly nearness in the 
heavens. A delicious, mild, and fragrant coolness 
pervaded the grounds. Soft strains of music floated 
from unseen or dusky corners, and as the outdoor 
scene assumed its festal glory, the house-guests issued 
from their rooms, the brilliant’y-lighted halls and 


afterward. 


25 


drawing-rooms revealing splendid toilettes and bril- 
liant beauty, and a gaiety and abandon that were 
contagious. 

Carriages bowled with a husky grating over the 
gravelled drives. Young girls and young men, ma- 
tronly and superb women with their husbands, and 
even the old, with their silver locks, descended from 
these almost numberless equipages. 

Madeline glanced over the surging, laughing throng 
gradually filling her rooms, and listened to the mur- 
mur of voices blended with strains of music, and felt 
that she had never been the center of a gathering so 
brilliant, so good-natured, and yet with such a dash 
of the picturesque and romantic. 

The effects of light outside were so intense that, far 
down some vista could be seen, later, the shimmer of 
satin, the outline of snowy shoulders, or within some 
improvised bower, a whole group vividly defined, 
like living, blooming statuary. Here and there an 
electrie light judiciously placed amid thick foliage, 
cast a network of sable shadows, black and soft as 
velvet on the unearthly, bluish reflection circling over 
a large space. The whole scene was an animated, 
sumptuous picture, alive with color, movement, 
music and laughter. Below rolled the majestic Hud- 
son. On three sides yose the mountains, dimly and 
solemnly visible. 


26 


aftp:rwaki). 


While these festivities Were in preparation, around- 
shoLildered old man nervously and quickly entered a 
New York bank just before the hour for closing.^ His 
square face was croSvSed and recrossed with the finest 
wrinkles; his long, flexible, upper lip hung over the 
lower with the grim honesty of a watch-dog’s; his 
scant, iron-gray locks struggled in disordered thin- 
ness on a massive head set protrudingly on a short 
neek. He knocked at the cashier’s private door and 
was instantly admitted. He sat down, then, in a 
leather arm-chair, with some appearance of delibera- 
tion, stretching out his muscular, withered hands on 
the arms; but they trembled visibly, and his head 
betrayed an incipient tremor as he said, after a short 
pause which the cashier had hesitated to break: 

“Well, I received your telegram. Let me see those 
notes.” 

The cashier wheeled in his chair, took out of his 
desk a small bundle, slipped off the elastic, and, 
silently handing it to the old man, dropped his 
e^'es. 

He looked up presently, struck with the intense 
stillness. Mr. Middleton had fainted; he opened his 
e3'es under the restoratives that were applied, looked 
around vacantly, then, struggling to his feet with re- 
turning consciousness while the pallor crept in ashy 
waves over his wrinkled face, he ejaculated, quaver- 
ingly, “Bankrupt ! I’m bankrupt! The rascal! The 


AF ritinVARD. 


27 


thief! The villain! He havS stolen my bonds, too! ” 
He uplifted his clenched hands. “I’ll punivsh him!” 

A spasm shook his aged frame, and he fell into his 
chair. Half conscious, he refused aid and held him- 
self upright against the hard back by main force. 

After a while he consented to lie down. An hour 
later he had regained sufficient strength to be put in 
a cab and sent home. But, meanwhile, he had in- 
sisted that a sheriff should be summoned to wait 
upon him. 

At .seven o’clock, more bent, and trembling with 
sudden decrepitude^ but with a still, resistless anger 
fixing his lips and hardening his whole face, he was 
at the railway station in company with a sheriff. 

Every curve of that winding road seemed like an 
urgent negation crying, “Spare not ! ” Eveiymile of 
the sw'ift current of that blue river rushing on 
toward the sea whispered “Speed! ” When the aged 
act wdth impulse and anger, they would annihilate if 
the}" could. Pity, loA^e, tenderness seem then like the 
slowly-gathering waters of some geyser, transformed 
by these upheavals of disappointed trust into a de- 
structive torrent. 

The same soft and beautiful night that flooded Sil- 
verbirch with mellow and mysterious radiance 
brooded with a light and tranquility just as friendly 


AFTERWARD. 


2S 

over the men who drove out over a smooth road 
leading from the station a couple of miles further 
north. 

They looked like other guests as they passed 
through the gates into a long avenue shaded with 
elms. But the swelling strains of music, as they ap- 
proached the house, ‘the happy laughter, even the fit- 
ful, lingering cadences of tViegeolian harps, in the faint 
breeze that had arisen, only emphasized to them the 
tragic sequences of Henry Winchester’s folly. 

The brilliantly lighted house, the revelry, the gor- 
geous costumes, the banqueting and dancing ap- 
peared to that staid old man whose recreation was 
his church, the very orgies of the devil. He felt a holy 
anger thrill his trembling steps and weakened frame. 

He bade his comrade wait for him on a veranda. 
He felt, now that he was there, a strange leisure over 
hastening events. In the confused splendor of the 
gay throng, he had not been able to distinguish 
Henry and Madeline, and he wanted to .see them once 
more before he separated them forever. It never oc- 
curred to him to waver on Madeline’s account. He 
never dreamed that she could tolerate the defilement 
of what he considered future liviqg with Henry Win- 
chester would be. Still, he wanted to see them as 
they were, with something of the feeling with which 
one takes a last, melancholy, retrospective look at 
the dying. 


AFTERWARD. 


29 


He placed himself to study the dancers with a feel- 
ing of retributive triumph, at theentrance of the long, 
covered walk, and where a strong light threw his 
face and figure into bold relief. He noticed the huge 
circle of chiwsanthemums and sage around the plat- 
form, calculating their cost, as liis eyes roved over 
the great floor and rested on one couple and another 
moving through the mazy figures of the German. 
There! ^Over on the further side were Plenry and 
Madeline, for Henry had claimed the dance his wife 
had reluctantly promised. He watched the supple 
form of the young man inclining, receding, and ad- 
vancing, clenched his hands in speechless fury as 
Madeline glanced up, her dark eyes full of love and 
joy; and when, hand in hand, witli the abandon of 
pleasure and success, they led a graceful series of be- 
wildering figures, on and on, over the waxed floor, 
on — as it seemed to Jacob Middleton, straight 
toward himself and his vengeance, he clutched his 
wrinkled fingers around his hotly throbbing heart, 
and while the soft wind fluttered his scant locks, he 
tightened his trembling lips in smiling contempt. 

Henrj^ Winchester glanced toward the coolness of 
that covered walk, tven as he pressed Madeline’s 
hands. If the ghost of his embodied frailties and sins 
had stood in that yawning opening,^ his sensations 


30 


'afierward. 


could not have been more terrible. His hand closed 
around his wife’s with a grasp that shut her jeweled 
fingers in an agonizing viee. 

She looked up with a seream, tried to keep step 
with her husband’s wavering motion, and then, 
realizing^that something horrible was impending, 
she turned as if to sustain him, when his hand 
loosened, and, with a groan, he fell headlong. 

All those merry followers stopped with a eommon 
impuLse of consternation, although the miisic con 
tinned its hilarious strains, as if proceeding by its 
own momentum. 

Three or four men stepped forward, and, picking 
Henry up, began bearing him tenderly to the house. 

A cold hand touched Madeline, and someone, in a 
sepulchral voice that sounded strange in its familiar- 
ity, bade her take his arm. She did so, and, in her 
alarm, failed to wonder at his recpiest. As her un- 
conscious husband was laid on a couch in his own 
room, this man went to the foot, and Madeline, 
kneeling beside Henry, applied one restorative after 
another, calling upon him by the most endearing 
terms. 

When he opened his eyes, at length, thev fell upon 
Jacob Middleton again, and agaiij he groaned and 
relapsed into unconsciousness. 

Madeline foljowed the direction of his stricken gaze, 
realizing for the first time that her husband’s illness 


AFTEKWATiD. 


31 


was connected with her uncle’s presence. She noticed, 
all at once, the sheriff, and, with that awful memory 
which never forgets a face, instantly recognized that 
he was not one of her guests. 

“What does this mean, uncle?.” she cried sharply. 

“It means, Madeline, that your husband is a thief. 
It means that he has made me bankrupt ! That is 
what it means! ” he repeated with senile reiteration. 
“Better for him if he never opens his eyes 1 ” 

But what man pursued by an inexorable nemesis 
makes an immediate, involuntar}^ exit from disgrace, 
through death? 

Even while Madeline was clasping him in an em- 
brace that meant all wifely faith and devotion, Henry 
awoke to final consciousness. 

“Madeline,’’ he said, after a long, speechless inter- 
val, during which he and Jacob Middleton had gazed 
at each other, the older man with the grim, unrelent- 
ing look of an inquisitor, the younger as if he would 
search the veiw depths of that heart for merc\'. 
“Madeline, go down stairs and bid our friends de- 
part. Tell them that I am ill — very ill!” He passed 
his hand across his brow. “While you are gone, I 
have an explanation to make to Mr. Middleton, 
Go! ” he commanded feverishly, as she refused. 

She went out into the bright hall, noticing, with 
that concentrated pain that takes cognizance of 
trifles, the cessation of the violins, but catching the 


32 


At^TERWARD. 


high, thrilling wail of a harp that a fitful breeze 
touched with a lingering, intermittent melody. She 
heard whispers in the chambers, saw white-capped 
maids watching her unobtrusively yet curiously, 
heard a momentary pause in the conversation in the 
drawing-rooms as she appeared descending the stair- 
case, then the succession of that ceaseless chatter 
which fills time and travesties silence which every- 
body kept up whether or not, then became conscious 
of a stillness that could be felt as she took her place 

t 

just within the drawing-room doors — as she thought, 
smiling, but, alas! with a white, pinched, distrait 
look, the look of a first and overwhelming grief 
which had taken her unawares. 

People began talking again — even laughing. An 
elderly gentlem^in, with a benevolent fib, condoled 
with her, b}^ saying that he knew her husl'and as a 
boy, and that then he fainted-frequently. 

Madeline knew better, but she picked the statement 
up with desperation, and descanted on his delicacy of 
constitution. The old gentleman left his regards for 
his host, said a few kindly nothings, and then, the 
icy constraint broken, the series of leave-takings be- 
gan. 

Man after man approached who had seen that re- 
vengeful face, and knew of Henry’s speculations, and 
had drawn a conclusion sadly correct because of 
similar perils in \yhich they mig .t be engulfed. And, 


AFTERWARD. 


33 


strange anomaly, while regretting that he had been 
such a fool as to be found out, they had an accession 
of self-respect, due to that old Spartan law tacitly 
revived in our day, that only the thief who is detected 
is reprehensible. 

It came to an end after a while. The final car- 
riage rolled away, and, with ^ the hands of the 
tall clock in the hall pointing to one, the weary 
woman bade the servants close the house. She 
went up-stairs. She opened the door of her 
room, and turned to the couch, expecting to see 
her husband there — yes, Jacob Middleton standing 
threateningly at the foot, and that other strange, 
respectful, silent man beside him. 

But no one was in the room. Yes, there was her 
maid standing on the other side, deprecation in her 
manner and tone, as she said: “Please, ma’am, Mr. 
Winchester has gone away, and please, ma’am, here 
is a note.” 

“You may go to bed, Agnes.” 

She stood there, irresolute, in the middle of the 
floor, when she was alone, that sealed note in her 
hand, afraid for the first time in her life of the future. 

She did not for a moment believe the terrible accu- 
sation against her husband, still ringing in her ears, 
but vshe did belicYe that he might suffer horribly, 

3 


84 


afterward. 


because of some awful misunderstanding, and in this 
first shock, even an imputed crime was intolerably 
degrading. 

At last she broke the seal, and with the gas flood- 
ing her solitary, gaily-dressed figure, and her eyes 
suffused and burning, she found courage to read. 

'‘My God ! ” she cried, “ Henry in prison ! ” 

She fell in a heap on the floor. 

By-and-by, when the first benumbing sense of the 
dreadful fact had passed away, she rocked herself to 
and fro in agony. A stifling sense of shame filled her 
one minute with revulsion for her husband, even with 
hatred of her children — those children who looked so 
like him. She loathed herself. The next minute her 
love for him asserted its supremacy, bringing with it 
a flood of defiant loyalty. 

Presently she tore the jewels from her fingers, 
throwing them far from her in the desperation of her 
disgust. The opals round her throat were like a 
clutching infamy. Unclasping them she cast them 
behind her. 

“Oh — oh!’’ moaned Madeline, a hot suffocation 
threatening to strangle her. 

She got up, after a long time, and, turning out the 
gas, began to undress in the darkness. 

She sat down in a window seat and wept, and 
tried to reason with herself over this strange 
disgrace, until the glimmering light warned her of 


AFTERWARD. 


35 


the approaching dawn. How awful the future 
looked in that pale light. 

In that still, twilight hour, alone with her misery, 
she summoned a kind of dreary resolution. Leaning 
her burning head against the casement, she drank in 
feverishly the cooling dampness which overspread 
the landscape, recently so far stretching, with a 
thick, gray pall. Oh, that it might shut her in and 
away forever ! 

As in the ancient lay of Beowulf, it seemed to her 
that the spirit of the marsh brooded over the earth 
in a half- visible form. She recalled the old poem idly, 
and, in the very exhaustion of feeling, allowed herself 
to fancythe fog assuming a dragon form and creeping 
on and on till it seized and destroyed her. Ah, what 
a relief would be hers, then. An eternity of mystery 
was not dreadful in the face of indefinite years of dis- 
grace. 

She walked waveringly across her chamber, and, 
for the sake of strength to consider and solitude 
to learn to hide her suft'ering from the curious, she 
threw herself on the bed. There was such a mad 
struggle in her heart — one minute between love and 
hate, such a sudden, strange mental vacuity; the 
next that kept her from grasping a line of thought 
just as it began to take shape, that she felt frenzied. 
If she could only sleep, or, if she could only think, she 
might see her way more clearly. 


CHAPTER III. 


DESOLATION. 

Conjugal relations are complex; so complex, that 
when they are disturbed, no one feels able to predict 
the final denouement. There are, it is true, an ap- 
palling number of gratuitous predictions, but their 
very multitude shows that no true prophet has 
arisen or at least been recognized. Whether conjugal 
love will survive disgrace, whether faithfulness will 
exist eternally side by side with unfaithfulness, 
whether women are like dogs, the more unremittent 
in their attentions the more they arc abused, whether 
men in love are Don Quixotes to whom a mere wind- 
mill is a romantic illusion to the end of time, — all 
these premises and kindred others immediately arise 
and are treated deductively and inductively whenever 
a family trouble becomes public. 

After Henry Winchester had confessed his guilt, had 
been sentenced for six years, and was imprisoned, 
those numerous guests whom he and Madeline had 
entertained most loyally and most royally fell, with 
few exceptions and one accord, from the altitude of 

36 


AFTERWARD. 


37 


dear, congenial friends like the multitudinous leaves 
that one sharp, frosty, windy night flutters to the 
ground. But such an army of rustling leaves makes 
a terrible uproar. 

It is needless to say that Madeline suffered in- 
tensely, but her pain was aggravated a thousand 
fold by the queries that reached her in one way and 
another as to what she proposed to do in the whole 
matter. 

It was of course natural and proper that she should 
act the belief, whether she felt it or not, that her hus- 
band was guiltless and her own faith in him absolute 
till judgment was passed and his own self-condemna- 
tion made public; but what then? 

Perhaps others were more aware than she had been 
herself till her trouble came, how proud she w^as. It 
also goes without saying, that to have been a leader 
of fashion in New York meant that she was fond of 
display ; whether this fondness would take a vulgar, 
or a romantic, or a practical turn, interested not a 
few. 

Then her children. Young as they were, the pros- 
pects of both the boy and. the girl were projected 
upon the canvas. Women declared it was a pity 
that they were not both girls; they could make of 
course, at the best, but indifferent marriages; but it 
would be a comfort to them, poor things, to drop 
their name. Men declared with great solemnity, men 


38 


AFTERWARD 


who had made mammoth fortunes in a day out of 
railway syndieates, or eleared a million in a season 
out of pork, or had shut off the water supply of a 
whole county, or had, through rebates, practically 
raised* the freight on produce to small farmers till 
their little homes and few acres were swallowed by 
gigantic grain monopolies, — such men averred, with 
a sad shake of the head, that they would rather bury 
a son than live to see him marry Winchester’s daugh- 
ter. And the boy. How smart is he? was the ques- 
tion. The father was too smart. That was the 
trouble. Better keep an eye on that boy ! Which 
meant, better close all chances to him. 

Some garrulous hanger-on to whom immediate 
communication of news had become a mental mor- 
phine habit, told these things to Madeline, and her 
nerves danced and her heart bled as only those can 
know who suffer and keep still. 

She had thought at first, that it was a question 
relating solely to herself and her husband. But — the 
children? The children ? More and more she asked 
herself, what is best for the children ? Sometimes she 
thought she would take them and live abroad. So 
many people in disgrace did that sort of thing, 
though, that she knew she would gain nothing for 
their future in such a course. No, their best chance 
was in their own countrv. 


AFTER^YARD. 


39 


She had seen them and cared for them mechanically 
in the first days of her trouble, her heart so destitute 
of any feeling but a great, unreasoning, ceaseless ache, 
that it seemed to her she could see them die without 
a regret. 

But, by-and-by, all this changed. She loved them 
with a kind of savage proprietorship. She asked no 
odds for either them or herself It did not hurt her 
in these days to see servants shrink before her unrea- 
sonable severity or to feel that a kind of frightened 
silence reigned in her presence. Better to have people 
afraid of her. She had gone down in the dust of fear 
and humiliation and bitter, bitter solitude, when the 
little attention she received was an insult in itself 

From a feeling of wounded pride, misplaced trust 
and the natural revolt which follows the personal ac- 
quaintance with positive and penal sin, she began 
slowly to react toward a magnanimous pity for her 
husband. She had not wavered in all outward con- 
formity to what she believed her marital obligations. 
She had even entered, unveiled, Ludlow street, dur- 
ing these dreary days that intervened before he was 
imprisoned on that very river familiar to him from 
his birth. She had, however, carried into his pres- 
ence, an atmosphere of separation that made her 
visits torturing to them both. She would do her 
duty, but some souls are so bounded by cold duty 
that they act, unconsciously, the part of evil spirits. 


40 


AFTERWARD. 


Henry Winchester had sinned deliberately and aw- 
fully, but he had also sinned under a temperamental 
impulse, when once the temptation had gained suffi- 
cient impetus. Now, in the reaction, he wondered 
as decidedly as Madeline, how he could have appro- 
priated what was not his own. The same affinity as 
well as affection which had united him and his 
wife in their joyous past, existed on his part still. 
Her still, cold, careful attention was a brand of his 
ignominy which he would gladly have foregone, much 
as he loved her. When, handcuffed and emaciated, 
he left the city for the state prison, his uppermost 
thought was like what Cain’s must have been in flee- 
ing from the sight of man. All humanity meant to 
him the unapproachable gentleness and condescen- 
sion of his wife. He longed to be hidden from a pres- 
ence beloved, but more dreaded. 

When he was in prison, Madeline’s fortitude gave 
way ; but it gave way when there was no eye to see 
her but God’s. The sense of such an oversight was 
not comforting to her; neither was it awful. She did 
have a keen sense of it, but she looked up to God in a 
wildly defiant way, feeling that if He did not under- 
stand He ought to, and that, with Him, her very des- 
peration would be her absolution. She was unutter- 
ably thankful that He was a silent God. She wanted 
no word from any one. Comfort there was none. 
Who could give her sympathetic advice save those 


AFTERWARD. 


41 


who had suffered similar disgrace? She knew not 
one, but thought of many to whom this thing seemed 
far more likely to have happened than to herself. Ah, 
what a brand this was — the wife of a thief! She 
said the terrible word aloud to herself. She held the 
wrinkled, revengeful face of her uncle before her 
vision. She went through, again and again, the 
wearisome, agonized horrors of that first fatal night. 
In the face of the present, what were the ten happy 
years of her married life? They were like a dream — 
empty. 

She had sat down on a hard chair, for physical ease 
was as distasteful to her as mental repose was im- 
possible. She sat alone in her darkened chamber, the 
doors locked, and, looking vacantly before her, 
thought and thought of the exceeding bitterness of 
her situation. She heard a train rattling in the dis- 
tance under the stony cliffs along the river. That 
train had passed under the very shadow of that liv- 
ing tomb where Henry was. Every train that went 
up or down would have the light obscured in the 
cars by the gloom of those impinging walls. But the 
shadow would go as quickly as it came, and 3^et 
Henry would be there, day and night, for six long- 
years. It was terrible, this being shut away from all 
the familiar, homely relations. It was terrible to live 


42 


AFTERWARD. 


with the dregs of humanity — ah, to be part of those 
dregs! That was what everybody would say of her 
husband — that he was where he belonged. 

She thought of that awful verse in Revelations: 
“For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whore- 
mongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whoso- 
ever love th and makethalie.” It was with such a 
class of people that Henry was to live — to eat and 
drink, to work and sleep, among! She clenched htr 
hands. 

So familiar was she with robberies for which there 
is as 3^et no law, with men whose honesty is of so 
little moment, that their colossal fortunes are the 
respectable monuments of their falsehoods, so familiar 
was she with wickedness in high places, that she had 
smiled on such men, entertained them and their fam- 
ilies, enjoyed the munificence of their ill-gotten mil- 
lions, and idly sighed that these things had to be. 
Ah, how difi'erent it was now. It seemed as if all the 
punishment of all the evil growing out of the greed 
for wealth and show and luxury in a great city had 
been visited on her head, and that Henry had been 
the one poor discovered wretch. Why, there were 
hundreds who should be his prison-companions. 
And these hundreds despised her and her children ! 

Pride is a mean quality of the human heart when 
it centers upon self alone. Selfishness is meaner still. 


AFTERWARD. 


43 


A heart cannot be wholly honest with itself until it is 
willing to wrestle with these foes for just what they 
are. 

The horror of her own selfishness awakened Made- 
line’s first comprehension of her husband’s exile. 
Her own wounded pride made her realize the bitter- 
ness of her ignominy. 

She became aware that her very fondness for the 
accessories of great wealth made her suddenly envious 
of those who were still unmolested in the enjoyment 
of theirs. Her former complacency was stirred to its 
depths. What a nest of evil passions her heart 
revealed. If the outside world was unmitigatedly 
cheerless, yet how more than cheerless, how barren 
of all uplifting qualities was her soul. 

She began, for the first time in her life, to feel out 
blindly for a peace that the world can neither take 
nor give. Hers had been a happy nature. She was 
desperately unhappy now. She felt that the things 
and the people that had made up her life before could 
never fill it again, yet it was a fullness of something 
that she wanted. 

Circumstances and people had been so unkind — 
not positively, but negatively. Still for her it had 
all the withering force of intentional unkindness. 
A few familiar friends had called, usually, however, 
bringing others less familiar with them, and they had 
talked as if far apart. The friends had gone away^ 


41 ^ 


AFTERWARD. 


saying, “Poor Madeline! She is changed. We had 
better leave her alone.” And Madeline felt that if 
they could not have come in a way to make their af- 
fection overleap all barriers, and could not have 
come alone, with open arms, and tears to mingle 
with hers, that theirs was no friendship for her 
, need. 

One lady had called, one whom she had kept at a 
distance, but who had admired her and followed her 
with a persistent kind of worship which women oc- 
casionally have for one another. 

She had had her notion of heights and depths in 
character, even in the ultra-gay world in which she 
had moved, and her chief objections to Airs. Saxby 
had been that that lady had too little force and was 
too affectionate. 

Mrs. Saxby had come in a pouring rain, and, when 
she saw Madeline, she had hastened forward, and 
had taken all the coldness and slenderness and sever- 
ity of the heart-broken woman into her arms, and 
had laid her cheek against Madeline’s, and had wept 
for her. 

“My dear,” she said, between her sobs, “I love and 
admire you more than ever, and whenever you want 
friends, try John and me. We will stand by you, and 
feel proud to do it.” 


AFTERWARD. 


45 


Madeline cried a little, a few dry, choking gasps, a 
few hot tears coming unawares. It was the “and 
feel proud to do it’’ that had overcome her. 

Mrs. Saxby’s very affectionateness had taught her 
the sweet humanity of love in Madeline’s extremity. 

“A handful of friends, out of hundreds!” said 
Madeline that dreary afternoon, after she was alone. 
“A handful who really care for me ! ” 

She got up and paced the floor, her pale face pinched 
with fatigue and dull with despair. The weeks had 
flown, and she had hardly known it, although itwas 
now December. With her hands clasped behind her 
back, with her somber, plain black dress unrelieved 
by any ornament, she was a broken, helpless-looking 
woman. She glanced from the windows as .she 
passed them. The sun had set; the short winter 
twilight was already falling. Overhead was a thick, 
low expanse of gray, cloudy sky, and, descending 
softly and rapidly was the first snow. It had already 
tufted the bushes and covered the walks and drives. 
Everything was burdened with its pure weight, and 
the rapidly increasing darkness gave a weird, un- 
earthly beauty to the scene. It had veiled every- 
thing so noiselessly and had beautified while it con- 
cealed. She wished for some spiritual enfolding as 
silent and as white. A strange, new question 
came to her as she gazed upon the landscape bounded 
by a snowy nearness. ' Whom had she loved and 


4.6 


AFTERWARD. 


caressed in their extremity ? When had any stricken 
soul interfered with the flow other gaiety, or cost her 
a night of sleep, or a day of sacrifice? She was ap- 
palled. Her life had been herself and her family. If 
others had needed as sorely as she, and had found as 
small a measure for the greatness of their need from 
her casual word and formal condolence, what was she 
that she should complain? 

For the first time in her life, she longed to getaway 
from herself. 

She rang for her baby. When it came toddling in, 
she caught it in her arms with something of the old 
gentle tenderness. She even exerted herself to play 
with it. The little thing, who had clung all these 
weeks to its silent, unresponsive mother, awoke to a 
glad gaiety, and laughed and talked in its broken 
prattle, until its little, rippling screams resounded 
through the house. 

guess the missus feels better, now it is over,” 
said the pantry maid to Charles, the butler, and 
Charles, making a crescent of his mouth, and lifting 
h's eyebrows, said, 

“It be about time.” 

On the strength of the change, he lighted an ex- 
tra lamp in the drawing-room, and put some flowers, 
according to the old custom, on the dinner-table. 


AFTERWARD. 


47 


When dinner was announced, Madeline asked for 
her boy, and when Paul came timidly and question- 
ingly, she put her arm around him and said : 

“Paul shall take dinner with mamma after this.” 

What a look of love the boy gave her ! And such a 
little thing to do ! she said to herself. 

Then th^y went down stairs together, the baby 
tottering and laughing from stair to stair, as she al- 
lowed it to try to descend by her side, Paul with his 
little arm reaching up around his mother’s waist, and 
that mother, with a subdued, protecting smile and 
an uplifted look in her white face that it had never 
worn before. 

That night she had Paul’s bed placed beside her 
own, and she put both children to bed he rselfj Winnie 
in her own bed. After this, since life would be hard for 
them at the best, the children should be with her night 
and day, and she would be mother and father to 
them both. 

Toward midnight, and long after they were asleep, 
she knelt beside them and tried to pray. Never be 
fore had she cried unto God with her heart. For the 
first time in her life, she cried out unto Him in great 
need. 

Then followed a month full of homely detail, almost 
daily relapses on her part into silent, despairing 
grief— days when she was cold toward the children 
and merciless to her own strength ; other days when 


48 


AFTERWARD. 


she would turn from the windows with frightened 
timidity if she saw a shadow outside, lest she should 
have to meet someone who might hurt her. She had 
a constant struggle with herself to keep a general 
self-respect, useful in meeting the outside world, so 
that the children should never learn from her to carry 
themselves less erect, or to question concerning the 
blight that ha*d fallen on their lives. 

She had many conferences with her lawyers, and 
held herself to a personal acquaintance with all her 
husband’s liabilities. 

Matters were worse than the lawj’^ers at first 
thought, but, if Mrs. Winchester were willing to take 
time to make good her uncle’s losses, she could save 
an abundance for hersell and children. 

But this she would not allow. She was too hon- 
orable to have a cent outstanding longer than was 
possible, and her worldly wisdom taught her that 
only the nicest honor on her part could in any way 
react for her children. 

She cried many a night in motherly pity that they 
looked so much like their father, but this very resem- 
blance pleaded silently and effectively with her for 
that father. 

These first real efforts of her life to act outside of 
merely present interests, even if only for her children, 
turned the channel of her thoughts more and more 
toward the general need of humanity. There were 


AFTERWARD. 


49 


SO many worse off than she was that she was watch- 
ing for them, and often found an opportunity of 
saying kind words or doing a deed thaf called for 
precious strength or time. 

One thing she could not bring herself to do, and 
that was to see her uncle. He had not supposed for 
an instant that he would forfeit her love and respect. 
If he took Henry Winchester’s property, it would be 
to give it back to her. But Madeline desired that 
money neither for herself nor her children. 

When spring came, and her affairs were adjusted, 
she felt a kind of melancholy pride when the town 
and country houses were offered for sale, when all 
New York were flocking to criticise and buy their 
pictures, when the stables were empty of horses and 
carriages, and when half of her own property lifted 
the last claim from her husband. 

Then she felt as free as she ever could feel. She had 
her two children; and she had more than enough to 
meet their simple needs. 

For the rest, she was living, moments at a time, 
only, it is true, in a larger world than she had ever 
believed existed. She had n’t a very intelligent love 
for God, but she was feeling out toward him. 


CHAPTER IV. 


IN PRISON. 

Madeline had done what might seem curious to 
women whose affection is chiefly instinctive. Never in 
thought, for a moment, abandoning her husband, 
she had not gone near him during that first long 
winter, and she had received no message from him. 

But, with the first bloom of May, and with her 
heart free from abiding bitterness, she knew that she 
could trust herself to an interview. 

The quality of her affection had gradually and per- 
manently changed. The very helplessness of her sit- 
uation had evolved her personal strength. In pro- 
portion to the consciousness of personal strength, 
and, if you will, of an almost caustic rectitude, had 
grown a quiet, pitying, protecting affection for her 
husband. 

When a woman loses the sense that her husband is 
her protector, something choice dies out of her love. 
Her love may be as enduring thereafter, but it has 


AFTERWARD. 


51 


more and more the sole quality of friendship, deeper, 
perhaps, as a sentiment, but not so eomforting or so 
joyful to either. 

. For a long time Madeline eould not tolerate the 
thought of Henry’s crime; but, in becoming intoler- 
ant to vice, whether outside or inside of a prison, she 
had become a woman of sterner stuif, and with a 
more pitying heart for the sinner. When she had 
thought little and cared less about such matters, she 
had really been very indifferent to sin, but had a 
social aversion to open and too flagrant sinners. 

Many a lovely woman has, unconsciously, an ultra- 
utilitarian set of morals which, if codified, would 
perhaps amaze a La Rochefoucauld. 

When she entered the station, leaving behind her 
an almost transparent blueness of sky which seemed 
to exhilarate the hurrying throngs to a pitch of 
gaiety, the gloom and vastness of the space she had 
to traverse to her train, accorded with her thought. 
For months, now, she had felt lost in a mystery so 
profound and far-reaching, that persons and places 
became spontaneously symbolical. The soaring, 
griny arches above her head, the smoky vistas under 
the bridges far beyond, the discordant gratings and 
puffings and sudden Hangings, the rushing throngs 
of silent faces either way. Ah ! All this was like the 
seriousness, the strain everywhere, the universal sad- 
ness and darkness. She walked on with steady, firm. 


52 


AFTERWARD. 


sedate tread, a woman a little taller, much slighter, 
than one usually meets, and so unsmiling that occa- 
sional observing passers-by turned and looked after 
her with startled wonder. 

Grief and disgrace combined have many expressions. 
Rarely do we meet a soul to whom they mean emanci- 
pation. Madeline was burrowing through dark, un- 
canny passages that might lead nowhere, but migh : 
conduct to the light. When alone she had the absorbed, 
almost trance-like manner of a person intently listen- 
ing and trying to comprehend the vaguest murmurs. 
She might be bruised, she might be broken, but she 
was never the woman to die under sorrow. “Iff 
could die!” This she said time and again to her- 
self. 

By-and-b3^, when the train had left the tunnels and 
was skirting the river, she was roused into tempo- 
rary forgetfulness. A quivering, bluish haze which 
did hot obscure the landscape, but tranquilized and 
warmed it, rested on ih.2 Hudson, and contrasted 
vividly with the radiant greenness and fragility of 
the new foliage, whirling now past her near vision 
and again receding, until, on the hither shore, it im- 
pinged upon her sight, a dazzling, vivid stretch of 
brilliant color. Everywhere the most etherial blue, 
the most living green ! It was a new, fresh, glad 
world. Yet it was the old world. All the landmarks 
greeted her. The same craft were sailing up and 


AFTERWARD. 


53 


down. The same towns clustered at the foot of the 
hills or nestled in the coves. Dull freight or coal 
trains darkened the view and swept on with the 
same dust and rumble as of yore. 

Something from within had come out ; that was 
all. But what beauty! What newness! What 
splendor! Into what oblivion the winter and the 
neutral spring had passed! A little more sunlight 
and the ice-gorges had burst. A little more heat, and 
the buds had unfolded. Heat, and moisture and 
light, and somehow brown earth and gray trees be^ 
came prismatic, and exhibited a world of teeming 
shapes and blooming fragrance. 0, how wonderful 
was this change! The landscape was a hint to 
Madeline — nothing more. It enfolded herinagrave, 
sweet, intangible influence which was not hope, for 
even the faintest hope must have something material 
to rest on, if it be of this world. It seemed rather 
like the refreshment which comes from seeing a purely 
happy face, or the solace which conies from contact 
with joyous strength. 

She looked till her head swam. She drank in the 
freshness and bursting life as if they would restore 
her, had she been dying. 

She shuddered when that darkening, gloomy pile 
glided past the windows, as the speed slackened. 
The next minute, when they stopped, her heart 
throbbed heavily, and an ugly, choking sensation 


54 


AFTERWARD. 


moineiitarily deprived her of the power of utterance. 
Nevertheless, she felt still more merciful, more tender, 
than she had an hour ago. She was glad, so glad 
because of the basket of fruit and dainty food she 
carried. She had prepared it willingly enough, but 
not yearningly. Now her heart yearned. 

She entered the prison composedly, idly wondering 
who among the others there were sight-seers, and 
who had — friends. 

But that waiting, finally, in such near solitude — 
the dreadfulness of it, the anticipatory agony of it ! 
She sat down on a settee and leaned her head against 
the wall, it trembled so. She fixed her eyes upon the 
door by which he would enter, and its paint glared 
at her. It seemed as if a sound, a touch, a voice, 
even, would be unbearable. Presently this intense 
excitement subsided. She felt — nothing. But every 
sense was on the alert. 

She saw the knob turn in the door. She calculated 
the width of the crack when it partially opened. 
Then when it was really opened, and her husband 
stepped inside, and, closing it, paused just over the 
threshold, with a sudden gathering together of her 
strength, she rose, walked to him, and kissed him. 

He took her hand, and, kissing it deprecatingly, 
looked up. 

“Let us sit down, Henry.” She felt extremely 
weak. She led him to the settee. 


AFTERWARD. 


55 


He sat down a little apart from her — alas, it suited 
her better thus, also. But, as she sat there, face to 
face with him, and looked into his brown eyes, hun- 
gry, faded, and ashamed, noticed his ill-fitting gar- 
ments hanging lirtiply on his thin body, saw the 
coarsening influences of bad air, poor food, and con- 
finement, then that motherly affection for him which 
had been gathering force for weeks, suddenly 
yearned almost divinely. Reaching out both her 
hands, her hazel eyes, solemn, tender, and tearful, she 
said with infinite tenderness, 

“ My poor Henry ! ^ 

He leaned his head against the wall, and a great, 
broken, shivering sob shook his frame. He had not 
expected tenderness. He had measured her pride, 
yea, her vanity. He had felt the coldness of her rec- 
titude; he had believed that she would be just, and 
nothing more. But this pitying love, so different from 
anything he had felt for months, was sweet, and it 
was unbearable. For Madeline had been his wife! 
She was that in reality no longer — never would be! 
never could be ! 

If the heavens had opened and revealed God as 
judge, he could hardly have felt more overwhelmingly 
this lost conception of his ignominy. In proportion 
as he respected her, he justified her. He knew that 


56 


AFTERWARD. 


such a woman, to whom sentiment was only a part 
of marriage, could never restore him to her reverent 
love. 

“Dear, we must talk together. There are so many, 
many matters to talk over. I want to tell you about 
the children. I have brought their pictures.’^ She 
drew the photographs from her pocket, as she spoke. 
“ They pray for their dear father night and morning. 
They think you are in France. See, here is Win- 
nie.” 

He turned his head away. He did not want even 
the pictures of his children to be behind prison walls. 
But he gazed, soon, long and despairingly on that 
baby face. He saw his own lineaments reflected with, 
infantile grace. He longed, bitterly, to hold the dim- 
pled hands, and 3^et, awful contaidiction, he would 
have fled, had he thought that those pure eyes could 
see him. 

“The — boy, Madeline?” 

“He is well, and strong, and so handsome. He is 
manly and good, too, Henry.” 

“Teach him simple habits. Make him so truthful 
that he cannot lie — or steal ! I wish I could die, and 
my memory pass away, before the children grew 
larger. God grant I may never leave this place 
alive I ” 

“God grant you may! You and I lived selfish 
lives. Half my grief, at first, dear, was because 


AFTERWARD. 


57 


this — this thing reacted upon myself. It is veiw 
hard!” She twisted her hands, unconsciously, 
against her breast. “But I think — I think there is a 
higher way for both of us. When you leave, Henry, 
I will stand by you as far as I can in justice to our 
children ; and meanwhile you will work to confirm 
your character — the inside character.” She tookhis 
hands in her earnestness, and pressed them with each 
thought. “You are freer to-day, Henry, from gain 
unrighteously won than many who scorn you and 
pass me by. Every cent is paid. Every smallest 
claim against you is settled. So there remains for us 
both, dear, only to make our peace with the heavenly 
power. I do not know very well, yet, how to do 
that, but I am learning. I share your sin with you, 
dear. I made it easy for you to be tempted, and I 
failed to see when you were tempted. I share it, 
Henry, night and day, I do I ” She covered her face 
and sobbed. 

“Don’t say that, Madeline. No one is to blame 
but I. And since I did — I’m glad I’m here. I 
wouldn’t wish one day of my term canceled, except 
by death. Is there anything left for you and the chil- 
dren?” 

“Enough.” 

“ I hardly see how there can be enough.” 


58 


AFTERWARD. 


“There is. Don’t ask me more now. The next 
time I will go over the business with you in detail. 
1 am eoming to see you onee a month, hereafter.” 

“Madeline,” interrupted Henry, “promise me one 
thing. Promise me, for the sake of the children, not 
to treasure any feelings against your uncle.” 

She rose, suddenly, white with wrath. 

“He shall never appease his guilty conscience 
through kindness to the children. He committed just 
as great a crime as you did. He blasted the life of 
the helpless, and he has made me a laughing-stock. 
When he should have been a father, he was a demon. 
If he had given you time, I would have upheld him. 
Cent for cent it should have been. I have never seen 
him from that day, and I never will. My children 
are the last of his blood. Let the dishonor he has 
brought upon us remain, so far as his gold is con- 
cerned. I loathe the name of money!” She turned 
her head away, and her words died down till her 
voice sounded in a faint whisper. 

He longed to take her in his arms. But what was 
he! He dared not touch her. She could come to him, 
but he could never go to her. 

“ Henry,” she sank down on the seat beside him. 
“There is an awful feeling in my heart toward that 
old man.” 

“Don’t, don’t feel so, Madeline. He was frightened 
about his money. He thought I had squandered all 


AFTERWARD. 


59 


he had. He trusted me because he thought I was 
proof against the corruptions in speculation. His 
vengence came down on me before he had time to 
realize that it would ruin the innocent.” 

She put her hand to her temples, as if new light had 
smitten her. It was such a coil of ugly acts and 
mixed motives, turn which way she would. It was 
easier to hate than to be indifferent — but — her tired 
head and aching heart refused to go fu ther. 

Husband and wife were both relieved when the 
summons came for her to depart. Shame and regret, 
and a wild, rebellious love which threatened to burst 
all restraint, consumed him. The proud, sad, am- 
bitious heart that Madeline believed she had con- 
strained into a resigned and even Christian atti- 
tude had, with one wild throb, broken these new and 
still unfamiliar restraints, and, all at once, was at 
war with society, itself, and even God. 

On her journey back to the city, though air and 
light and view were just as lovely as earlier in the 
day, she had neither sight nor thought for them. 
She sat in her chair, her head against the cushions, 
her eyes closed, a shadowy world of thought and 
feeling passing before her. Her interview with her 
husband had shocked her inexpressibly. The prison 
smell was in her nostrils still. The stripes on his 
clothing danced up and down before her eyes with 
every motion of the train. His closely shaven head 


60 


AFTERWARD. 


and face, his hands already callous, his lined, discol- 
ored face, his longing, humbled eyes from which 
something manly had gone, — all smote her pride and 
affection with appalling force. She clutched her fin- 
gers tightly around the arms of her chair as the pict- 
ure passed and repassed before her, each time with 
some new and sickening detail. She had seen a mo- 
mentary, almost greedy look shoot from his eyes 
when she first uncovered her basket, and then, the 
gentleman getting the better of a dainty appetite 
still unused to prison fare, he had set the basket 
aside, to her relief. 

“Always myself, myself! ” she moaned, in her help- 
less agony. She began to despise the fastidious 
niceties of a highly-bred woman. They made her feel 
so useless for all the cruel,coarse needs which untoward 
circumstances develop. Then her fancy projected 
the results of six years of such a life. What would 
be left of the man whom she had called husband ? All 
her courage for him forsook her, and out of her very 
affectionateness, she cried to God to shorten his life. 
Then her conscience lashed her for her cowardli- 
ness, and want of proper regard for justice. For 
Madeline, instinctively dwelling on the idea of life for 
life, atonement in some form for wrong-doing, in- 
grained into the very warp and woof of Saxon 
blood, believed that he could be purified only by a 
long life of self-denial and lofty uprightness. 


CHAPTRR V. 


JACOB MIDDLETON. 

A DEEP blueness was in the sky when Madeline, on 
her return, stepped from the street-car. She looked 
up, and far away in the vanishing depths one liquid 
star trembled. The peace of that upper space was 
benignant, and calmed her. 

She had a walk of a half dozen blocks to take 
through the broad and quiet streets of the quarter 
where her rooms were. 

The west wind brought on its wings the fragrance 
from blooming shrubs. There was even a scent of 
fresh mold. She thought of the previous spring. 

The resignation which comes from exhaustion 
through poignant suffering was in her step and sub- 
dued "her face, as she ascended the stoop, mounted 
to her parlor, and sank into a chair. Untying her 
bonnet strings mechanically, she pulled off a glove, 
and, lost in thought, sat with folded hands. 

Two great, discouraged, hopeless tears trembled 
on her lashes and rolled over. She wiped them away 
and repressed a sob. 


61 


62 


AFTERWARD. 


She got up, pulled her bonnet off, and, as she did so, 
her eyes fell upon her uncle, sitting in the corner be- 
hind the door she had entered. His wrinkled old 
hands were on his knees. His tremulous, palsied 
head, protruding more than usual, was bent toward 
her. His square, seamed face was full of an aged ap- 
peal that made her momentarily irresolute. 

“Madeline, Pm sorry! I’d give a great deal to 
undo it.” 

“You never can — never! You have worse than 
orphaned the children. You have disgraced your 
own blood.” 

Now, although she had written her sentiments 
freely to Mr. Middleton, he had been able to shake 
off any unpleasant effects from them. If he chose to 
make concessions, her attitude would doubtless be- 
come altogether different. 

To his grim Scotch nature, law and law alone 
-could punish. He had gone to church twice every 
Sunday since this ugly affair had happened, he had 
stood up in the weekly prayer meeting, his two hands 
clasped on the seat before him, his stern, honest eyes 
closed, and had invoked his Creator in solemn 
tones to bring sinners to the fold, to keep the godly 
in the narrow way, and to speedily condemn wicked- 
ness in high places. Unconsciously, his prayers were 
so personal, that no hearer, acquainted with his 
grievance, could mistake their tenor. Then had sat 


AFTERWARD. 


63 


down, his straight mouth still straightcr. He cher- 
ished the thought that he had never condoned wick- 
edness. Skin for skin, tooth for tooth, it had been 
with him for seventy years. Madeline was his kith; 
her children, too! She should come to live with him, 
and the boy and girl should be “plucked as brands 
from the burning.” The lake of fire and brimstone 
were awfully real to him, and these days, if he had 
analyzed his thought, he would have found that he 
believed them suitably and singularly well ordained 
from the beginning for Henry Winchester. 

Month aft^r month passed. Although he never 
wavered in his conviction that he had done right, 
still, a hugging loneliness at his heart made him de- 
cide to propitiate his niece. Since the child felt the 
disgrace so bitterly, and sufiered so cruell}^ he was 
sorry that he had dealt justly with her husband. 
And, if it would bring her to him, if he could feel the 
touch of her cool, strong hand once more on his 
head, feel again that his aged whims were attended 
to with daughterly love, — for her good and the chil- 
dren’s, bring her under his roof, — why, he would 
yield the point a little to her in private, and say that 
he was sorr3^ - 

No man everrolled up Broadway in his comfortably 
upholstered coupe with a more magnanimous feeling 
than did Jacob Middleton that May a'ternoon, when 
he had decided to “apologize” to Madeline. No 


64 


AFTERWARD. 


man ever believed more absolutely in bis paternal 
goodness than did this lonely being who wanted his 
home brightened, his heart cheered, and — shall w.e 
say it? — a niece by his side in public, whose presence 
there would vindicate his justice, and be a warning 
to transgressors. 

The beginning of his business life was applied with 
skilled precision to his ethics. He worshiped a God 
whom he believed as limited and as dogged and as 
calculating for personal glory as Jacob Middleton. 
“For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the 
glory,” he prayed, repeating this ancient invocation 
of reverent monks. For mine is my kindom, my 
power, and my glory, he lived, demanding the ac- 
knowledgment from every employe, but rewarding 
it likewise, conscientiously, with wages or salaries 
that were never delayed, and looking after theirneeds 
in sickness or misfortune with a care and generosity 
that none could gainsay. 

He had reasoned it out with himself that so it was 
right to do, and so he did. But the enlarging love 
that gave when pity cried, the revealing charity that 
showed a whole creation groaning, yea, travailing in 
pain, that he must help, whether deserving or not, 
such love and such charity he knew not. He had 
studied the letter of the law till spiritual blindness 


AFTERWARD. 


65 


overtook him. The needs of his own nature, though, 
ached for something entirely outside of and above 
the province of law, 

Love for his niece softened his hard, upright nature 
the longer he sat waiting in her parlor. Many famil- 
iar things about the room suggested tender reveries 
of her. When he heard the door open, a strange, new 
timidity held him still. So it happened that he sat 
there an eye-witness of misery real enough and acute 
enough to make an acknowledgment spring from his 
lips in the simplest possible form. 

But when Madeline stood there before him, white 
with deathly pallor, scorn and grief contending in her 
expressive face, and called him Jacob Middleton! 
Morally vicious! Him, who had given a tenth of 
his income year in and year out, as an offering to 
God! Him, who had never borrowed or owed a 
cent! Had placed him, in his unspotted uprightness, 
.side by side with her criminal husband, his indigna- 
tion obscured his love. He rose; his hand shook as 
he pointed his finger at her, and told her that she 
would bring still further ruin to her children by her 
unholy anger. 

“It was right to part you from that wicked man. 
It was right to punish a sin against God and society. 
I came here to offer you my home and my protection, 
and my fortune when I am gone, and this is the way 

5 


G6 


AFTERWARD. 


you return your old uncle’s faithfulness and love. My 
fortune shall go elsewhere.” But his eyes belied bis 
words. 

“Do you think, Uncle Jacob, that I would touch a 
cent ofvour money ? Do you realize that I— yes, and 
mv children, for I will teach them so— would scorn to 
accept the smallest favor from you ? O, Henry did 
wrong; I grant it; he stole! And you — you have 
stolen my peace of mind forever! ” 

“I did right! I did right! ” 

“You did not do right. Your mercenary nature 
was aroUvSed. You thought 3^011 were bankrupt. In 
3^our passion, you sought and found revenge. Your 
moral ideasare so low — \^es, they are,” and Madeline 
waved her hand imperiousl}^ to stop him, as he tried 
to speak — “that you punished a few days of temp- 
tation and sin by everla.sting disgrace. When a 
man loves mone}" better than famiU honor, he is no 
longer kin to me. Uncle Jacob, I pity \'ou the pos- 
session of your gold. I would rather, to-day, be 
the vilest prisoner, with a heart that could be touched 
by the infirmities of human nature, than a respected 
deacon clothed in the rags of self-righteousness. 
When I think of jou, poverty seems a lofty honor.” 

He cast on his niece one look of still, bitter, speech^ 
less anger. Then, tottering past her, he fumbled his 
way down stairs, gave the coachman the name of his 
lawyer, and, getting into hi^ broughaip, s^nk atrem- 


AFTERWARD. 


67 


bling, enraged heap of decrepitude, into the seat, 
plotting retaliation for the benefit of the heathen and 
education. 

Before he retired that night, Harvard University 
was rieher by one hundred thousand dollars; Mada- 
gascar was Christianized to the extent of ten thou- 
sand dollars; the Azores had a publie librar}" for the 
spread of current news ; fifty scholarships were en- 
dowed in twenty-five colleges ; the remainder was to 
be spent in building and endowing a church property 
in Alaska. 


CHAPTER VI. 


A DOUBLE LOSS. 

July was far advanced before Madeline could leave 
the city. Her business was then sufficiently adjusted 
for her to seek a place far away for the summer 
months, a place where she knew no one, and where 
she could rally a semblance of gaiety for her little oner. 
They were beginning at times to wear the self-con- 
tained look which children learn who are too much 
in the presence of suffering. More than once during 
these long months, Paul had crept into her bed in the 
small hours of the night, and twining his arms 
around her neck had said plaintively, 

“ Paid loves you, Mamma. Paul loves you so much, 
so much! ” 

‘‘Yes, darling,” swallowing her hot grief and 
clasping him to her breast. “Now let us go to sleep 
together.” The warm, curly head nestling in her 
neck at such times was an unspeakable comfort. 

She took her third journey to the prison before de- 
parting, and then, the packing done, her nurse dis- 


Afterward. 


69 


missed, she turned her face northward. O, the relief, 
to be absolutely alone, among strangers, with her 
children! 

“ Are you going to France, Mamma ? ” asked Paul, 
his eyes sparkling. 

“ Papa in Sans ! Papa in Sans ! ” echoed Winnie. 

“Not yet, dear, but one of these days, when Paul 
can read and write well, — as well as Mamma, — then 
we will go to France.” 

What consoling rest she drank in, as they glided out 
of the slip on the sound boat and she felt the first 
whiff of the salt breeze. If she had been one of the 
park eagles beating its dismantled wings against its 
• cage and suddenly finding itself free to soar into the 
blue ether, she could not have experienced a more 
.panting desire to speed onward than she did, as the 
majestic steamer, clearing the East river, floated out 
into the Sound. 

The low Connecticut shores on the left, rising 
dreamily from the water’s edge, the yellow sand 
cliffs of Long Island looming golden against the Vene- 
tian blueness of the sky, the revolving lights, now 
red, now white, the damp softness of the cool even- 
ing air, and on in front, the vague and endless stretch 
of water inclosed her comfortingly with her children 
— somewhat as if her tired spirit had glided with its 
beloved into a new world. 


70 


AFTERWARD. 


Ahead of her, on the other side of the boat, she sa\T 
some former friends. They looked over and bowed 
gaily and cordially. She thanked them in her heart 
for making no further effort. 

As the night folded them in, Winifred nestled close 
against her bosom, and Paul stole his hand into hers. 
She pressed it tenderly, and then he leaned against 
her, and, pointing to where the starr\^ sky sank into 
the misty, distant sea, said: 

“Dear Mamma, perhaps we are sailing on the 
beautiful river of death. Do you think this is that 
river. Mamma ? ” 

“Perhaps, dear. Who knows.” 

“When shall we know, Mamma?” 

“We can never tell, dearest, before landing. But if 
it is, Paul, 3^011 know where it leads.” 

“Yes,” said Paul, reverentlv, and gazed with stead- 
fast e\'es into the space ahead. 

B\^ and by, his head sank heavily against her 
shoulder. 

When the children were both asleep, she wrapped 
a rug about them, glad to let them breathe as late 
as possible the sweet saltness of the air. 

When the decks were almost deserted, she roused 
Paul, and lifting Winifred in her arms, no light 
weight, she carried her to their state-room, Paul 
clinging sleepily' to her side. 


AFTERWARD. 


71 


The captain was in the saloon with two or three 
other gentlemen. They paused involuntarily in their 
conversation and bowed, and then looked beyond 
Madeline. They all knew her. Not one but felt bet- 
ter as he looked. The sadness of her mouth was 
softened, her eyes shone with maternal tenderness. 
Something in the still youthful slightness of her fig- 
ure, and the gentle, calm pose of her graceful head 
awakened S3unpathy. 

She sat down to undress her baby. 

Winifred cried a little, and finally broke into a per- 
sistent wail of discomfort which she could not 
soothe. 

“Climb up into your berth, dear,” said Afadeline 
to Paul, when he rose from his little pra^^er. 

“Will you sing to us then. Mamma?” 

“No, dear; not here.” 

“Why not? 

“Sing, sing,” said Winifred. 

She hesitated, and looked out into the cabin ; no 
one was there. Why not, indeed, if they wanted it? 

So, laying Winifred in her berth, and kneeling be- 
side her, Paul leaning over and looking at her admir- 
ingly, as if he were a cherub hovering in benediction, 
she sang. She loved old-fashioned melodies, and 
hymns full of fervid feeling and adoration. She be- 
gan in a low, soothing tone: 

“ When I survey the wondrous cross, 

On wdiich the Prince of Glory died.” 


72 


AKTHKWARl). 


Before she had finished, Paul had sunk down into 
his pillow in a sweet sleep, and Winifred’s snowy lids 
had curtained her blue eyes. 

They trayeled all the next day. They crossed the 
undulating dreariness of central Maine, passed 
through stretches of wood, a remnant only of those 
]3rimeyal forests that once afforded masts to stem 
the tempests of all seas. When night came, they 
halted in Bangor. They sta^^ed there a few days, 
growing stronger in the bracing coolness of its 
healthful air, wandering or driying for hours through 
its shady, old-fashioned streets, Paul asking many a 
question about the roomy white homesteads with 
their green blinds and cumbersome knockers, Winifred 
plunging her happy, toddling feet into the cushiony 
turf growing through the centers of the broad streets, 
or trying to step on the flickering shadows that 
played under the drooping, meeting elms. 

But Madeline had not gone far enough yet. 

So they took the train again, speeding northeast to 
the pine forests of New Brunsvyick. During the lat- 
ter part of their journey, the\' were the only passen- 
gersin thecar. The door was wide open. They jolted 
over the uneven road, at the rate of ten miles an hour. 
There was no dust. The brakemanwas a garrulous, 
half-grown boy. 

Madeline sat down on the door-sill, Paul wedged 
in behind her, Winifred on her lap. 


AFTERWARD. 


73 


The newness of the countr^^, the great stretches of 
forest, unbroken, save by the wavering, uneven 
track extending in a straight line far as the eve 
could reach, the huckleberry bushes by the wayside 
laden with their shimmering blue fruit, the balsamic 
fragrance of the air, and the paler skies of the north- 
ern latitude, all gave her a sense of freedom and re- 
moval. 

Paul asked many a question, and the brakeman ■ 
told him yarns of wild beasts and Indians that made 
the little fellow peer into the vistas of the forest with 
pleasing dread. 

By and by they came to a placid lake, deep and 
blue and wide, hemmed in b}^ sheltering mountains 
whose wooded sides were unbroken by dwelling or 
clearing. 

“How beautiful!” exclaimed Madeline, leaning 
out. 

“ Think so ? ” asked the brakeman. He turned and 
looked at the lake critically. 

“I don’t see how you can keep your eyes off it, even 
if you do pass it every day.” 

“I never thought anythin’ o’ it before. S’pose I’m 
used ter et. Good fishin’ ther, though. My, but 
this ain’t anythin’ to what yer a cornin’ to 1 ” 

‘‘Soon? ” cried Paul. 

The boy shook his head oracularly. And sudden- 
1 almost without warning of the change, right and 


74 


Afterward. 


left, the salt, sparkling water of Passamaquoddy bay 
met their vision. To the right rose a long mound-like 
island, dotted with a solitary house and barns. Far 
beyond, meeting the gleaming afternoon sky, cliffs of 
brilliant red, fading into cream impinged over innu- 
merable straits and channels. Everywhere, as the 
travelers curved in and out on the train, they beheld 
islands of all shapes and sizes along the winding 
shore. They came, at last, upon a small, wooded 
neck of land, a long, narrow island in front, of it, like 
a kind of natural breakwater, and a rambling, moss- 
grown old4:own stretching itself out in the sun along 
the shore. Madeline knew, then, that they were at 
St. Andrews. She felt also, with a thrill of relief, that 
she was as isolated as she could wish in the quaint 
fishing-town whose glory had departed at the begin- 
ning of the century. 

There was no hotel, and she had engaged board in a 
Scotch family whose staid and rigid ways suggested 
her Uncle Middleton. But, hundreds of miles away 
from him, the resemblance did not disturb her. She 
felt safe and sheltered, too, when she gathered at 
night with Paul and Winifred around the family altar 
with the widow and her children. She liked the 
quaintness of bowing reverently and standing for a 
blessing before and after every meal. 

For the rest, Paul and Winifred revelled in the 
great feather bed they slept in, and Madeline herself 


AFTERWARD. 


. "75 

did not find it come amiss during those summer 
nights which had almost a touch of frost in their 
coolness. Paul vStretched his legs and grew strong 
climbing up and down the yellow posts of his bed- 
stead, which touched the very ceiling. 

They spent the days out of doors, the mother read- 
ing or thinking under the shade of her umbrella, the 
children playing in the sand. They learned to watch 
and love the far-reaching and wonderful tides ; when 
these came in late in the afternoon, they strolled 
along the deserted and decaying wharves and, sit- 
ting down, many feet above the water at first, 
watched the tide rise and rise till it threatened to 
submerge the little town. 

They spent whole days in a low carriage, a stout 
Canadian pony to draw them, and, driving in every 
direction, would reach home only at nightfall. 

Sometimes they ate their mid-day meal along the 
banks of the St. Croix, its majestic width and vol- 
ume near its mouth reminding the retrospective 
mother of the Hudson. Then again, they would take 
a little boat and row out to one of the numerous 
islands, exploring it near the shore, and coming back 
laden with ferns and berries. Once in a great while 
Madeline would take the children down the bay in 
the diminutive steamboat that touched at St. An- 
drews, and Paul was never weary of watching the 
miniature whirlpools so frequent inPassamaquoddy, 


76 


AFTERWARD. 


or of sailing through the shoals of herring that 
sparkled in the sunlight like a vast piece of molten 
silver, or of discovering some mysterious mirage 
peculiar to those waters. 

Days and weeks passed and still they lingered. The 
children had never been so happy, and Madeline, busy 
with the daily care of them, had less time to think. 
In those almost sylvan solitudes, her sorrows were 
really less corroding. 

The gray hairs gathered all sumrher, but, notwith- 
standing, she gained in flesh and beauty. The high 
vitality which had marked all her m overrents before 
her trouble came, was less, apparent. It was a trans- 
muted force only, visible in the sad intensity of her 
eyes, the occasional compression of her lips, and a 
kind of ceaseless solicitude for her children. Like the 
rush of some vast stream through a narrow canyon, 
her whole nature was becoming absorbed in a con- 
vsuming maternal passion. Unconsciously, she was 
giving way to the trend of her temperament, which 
craved and sought an absorbing interest in one form 
or another. 

The charities in which she had begun to take an in- 
terest, before leaving the city, occupied her thought 
less and less. It grew hard for her to even write to 
the unfortunate ones whom her crushed heart had 
first sought out, in its extremity. The fascination of 
her isolation grew upon her more and more. Some- 


AFTERWARD. 


77 


times she wandered from one fine view to another, 
considering whether she would buy a plot of ground 
and build a hoUvSe and involve herself and her chil- 
dren in a seclusion that the short summers and the 
long, bitter -winters would render well nigh impene- 
trable. She fancied what her possession of them 
would be — a northern, ice-fraught wind howling 
around their exile — a great fire-place aglow with 
pine logs — books and music — and on Sundays, wor- 
ship in the little English church at St. Andrews. 

October came, and still she nursed this fancy, as an 
idle one, it is true, but finally she reached the point 
when she asked Paul if he would like to live in St. 
Andrews. He screamed with delight, a vision of a 
cart drawn by a Newfoundland dog, in which noble 
animal the place abounded, summing up life to him. 

She herself hardly knew how it came about, but, 
in another week, she had bought a few acres of 
ground where the St. Croix rushes in a wide blue 
current into Passamaquoddy bay. A belt of pines 
shut ofi' the cold north. The south and west faced 
the water, the sunshine and the v;armth, and the 
sloping land to the east was like a great hand of 
mother earth held gently upward as if to protect this 
favored spot from the sea winds. 

Labor was cheap in St. Andrews and work a god- 
send, and so, notwithstanding the season, the cellar 
was at once begun with fair prospects of having the 


7 $ 


AFTERWARD. 


house inclosed before the winter became too severe. 
Many hands hastened the work, and with Decem- 
ber there was much visible promise of the new 
home. 

Meanwhile, the children, wrapped in furs, and out- 
of-doors all day, grew into such a bloom of sturdy 
beauty that they became the romantic favorites of 
the little village, and the mother a potential digni- 
tary, whose glory completely overshadowed that of 
the colonial titled lady stranded in St. Andrews. 

One bright morning, the last on which work could 
be done on the house for the winter, she left Paul to 
walk with Winifred, while she ran up over a slope to 
examine a load of redolent cedar with which closets 
were to be lined, and which was to be stored to sea- 
son during the cold weather. Paul was as good a 
nurse as she, and so thoughtful that she felt no fear 
in leaving the children alone for a half hour. So, 
blanketing their stout, white pony, she bade them 
keep moving, kissed them good-bye and left them, 
but with main' a loving, backward glance. 

The tide Wcis still far out, so Paul went on the 
smooth, hard sand, running with his wee sister up 
and down the curving shore. 

A pile of rocks, still unsubmerged, shone in thesun-' 
light, and thither, attracted by the sea-weed and 
shells stored among the crevices, the little fellow, 
after a while, led Winifred, 


AFTERWARD. 


79 


Sturdy and sure of foot, they climbed up to a 
sheltering hollow. There, lying in a sand-lined nook, 
was a dead gull, its white wings torn, its snowy 
breast stained with blood. Some hunter’s shot had 
killed it. 

“Winnie and Paul will bury the poor,.poor bird,” 
said the brother, his grave little face assuming a rev- 
erent melancholy. 

“Es, es! ’’ and Winifred sat down on the rock. 

Paul began to scoop the sand out. When the 
grave was dug and the birdie placed within, he re- 
peated what part of the burial service be could re- 
member, Winnie crying effusively. 

When they had finished, and had outlined a cross 
with pebbles at the head of the little mound, they 
still lingered, gathering the shells and sea-weed 
strewn near the guH’s grave. 

Then Paul took Winifred’s hand, and, leading her 
to the summit of the rocks, looked down — and lo, 
the sea was everywhere ! 

One of the great tides of the Bay of Fundyhad 
crept in suddenly, and still it was rising. 

How often had Madeline pointed to the notches in- 
dicating these floods. Paul’s mind, j^outhful as it 
was, realized with unspeakable horror that a wall of 
water, thirty feet high, would cgver the grpiipd above 
low tide. 


80 


AFTERWARD. 


He clasped his little sister in his arms, who laughed 
with delight over the sparkling waters everywhere, 
and with uplifted head, cried — “Mamma — 
Mamma! ” 

When had that cry ever failed to bring succor ? 
He believed that, somehow, his mamma could reach 
her children. 

Still Madeline lingered, lingered in the corner where 
the parlor would be. She half smiled as she pictured 
the life in that room the next winter. The cruel 
north wind sweeping round the frame with a wolfish 
howl made the scene all the more real. That cruel 
wind swept on, on to the rocks, and. catching up 
Paul’s cry on its vanishing wings, carried it out to 
sea. 

Higher rose the water, till it rippled through the 
crevices and licked the little toes pressed close to- 
gether. 

Winnie looked up and smiled, half confidently, half 
afraid. 

Paul held his arm around her, but Paul looked so 
sad. When a tear dropped over his lids, Winnie's 
lips trembled, and nestling to him, she murmured, 
“Paul not cry! Paul not cry ! ” 

“Call Mamma, Mamina! Loud! So loud! And 
I will call Jesus,” said Paul. 

Out upon the wintry air, one voice trembling with 
fear the other with sympathy, rang the childish 


AFTERWARD. 


81 


treble — “Mamma! Mamma! Jesus! Jesus! Dear 
Jesus !“ 

Madeline’s dreamy ear caught a sound that was 
not the wind, and, startled, she looked up a second. 
Then a responsive thrill crept through her, and she 
rushed out and up the hill. “The children!” she 
cried to the men who hastened after. 

Up and down the shore she looked. Then, in a sec- 
ond, she beheld two little figures half submerged on 
those cold, bleak rocks. Her shuddering heart heard 
that combined wail, and then, even as Paul saw her 
rush toward the water, and he believed that help had 
come through his own mamma, the current eddying 
over his foothold rose suddenly higher, and* as it 
trembled as if to gather volume, his feet slipped, and 
out, seaward, he floated, with Winnie in his arms. 

How those cruel waters played with the frail bod^ 
ics, rocking them now this way and now that as they 
sank and rose. Then a great wave swept them 
apart, and Madeline uttered one long, despairing 
wail as she saw her tender baby dashed against a 
jutting tooth of granite. 

Another swell brought them half way in, and then 
receding, carried them with it, just as a lumberman 
who had waded out to his depth, stretched forth a 
hand to grasp Paul’s little coat. 

No boat anywhere ! 


82 


AFTERWARD. 


Two brave men now plunged into the icy flood, 
and swam to where the tide was wafting the little 
ones with each ebb further and further out, but when 
they reached those unconscious forms, a hugh billow, 
more friendly or more capricious, floated the children 
on its crest and washed them up on the sand — up to 
Madeline’s very feet. 

She threw out her arms in a long heart-piercing 
wail, and fell beside them. 

“ Here, you, Geordie, gie a hond to carry her up to 
Anne Sackett’s. An’ Davie, an’ Allen, tek, each o* ye, 
a leetle one an’ hurry arter uns.’’ 

The procession started over the sand and the sere 
grass of a neighboring slope to a fishermain’s cottage 
nestling on the other side. Anne Sackeft herself saw 
them coming, from the one little window facing sea- 
ward. She stood in the doorway to bid them enter, 
when they approached. Well she knew the meaning 
of such a group. 

“Mair sorrow, Geordie? What, the city bairns 
who wur here ony yester, an’ warmin’ their bonnv 
hands before my fire? An’ the puir mither! All dead 
taegether ! ” 

“ The mither is nae dead ; but the bairns be, wi’ out 
doot. But we’ll see what rubbin’ an’ warmin’ will 
do.” 

“Strip her wet claethes from her winsome bodv,’ 
said Allen to Davie, who laid Winnie on the stone 


AFTERWARD. 


83 


hearth before the fire. “She be dead, puir blossom. 
Xyj an’ mv bo\^ too,’’ he added, pointing to a wound 
on Paul’s temple. “They hae been in that freezin^ 
water too long, if ther wur nae ither hurt. The twa 
were dashed agin the rocks. I see it wi’ mi own 
cen.” 

Those rough but tender men chafed the children in 
vain. Anne Saekett meanwhile busied herself with 
Madeline, who had been laid on a bed in a corner op- 
posite the fire. 

“She’ll be in no common trouble,” said Anne, as 
she chafed Madeline’s cold hands. “It’s a kind we’re 
used to here in St. Andrews, hey, Davie, this heart- 
breken that the sea rneks? ” 

“Avc, ave, Anne. But I hae nae doot but she hae 
seen sail' (rouble afore this. She’d ne’r a hankered 
to bur}" her children an hersen in St. Andrews- I sed 
when she begun her house, aiT I say it again. Luk 
at her young face and her gray hairs. ThovSe deep 
eyes o’ hern hed heart-brek in ’em afore this loss o’ 
the bairns.” 

“ It may be; it may be! But she’s nae sae used 
to sorrow but she’ll hae a hard wakin’ up. What 
wad Heaven mean, though, cf the airth hed nae 
sea?” 

“Aye, aye,” said Davie, reverently. “She’ll under- 
stand Revelations now, as well as though she war a 
rael St. Andrews’ woman. See her puir lids tremble, 
Turn her een awajr fro’ the bairns,” 


CHAPTER VTT. 


RETROSPECTION. 

AVith consciotisness came an immediate and almost 
overwhelming terror. But her nerves made no second 
recoil, when Anne told her that the bairns were 
dead. 

The men stepped wordlessly aside, as she leaned 
over the little forms still stretched before the huge 
fire. 

“ Anne,” she said, after she had tenderly examined 
the children, ‘‘if you will give me some blankets to 
wrap my babies in, Davie and Allen will carry them 
home for me.” 

“No, no,” said Madeline, with a touch of impatience 
in her voice, as they told her that the carriage was 
at the door. “I could not ride in that. It is not far 
for strong men like Davie and Allen. I will walk be- 
side them.” 

Anne Sackett stood in the door, shading her eyes 
with her hand, as the little group started down the 
white road leading along the shore. She shook her 


afterward. 


85 


head as she saw Madeline’s form sway under a strong 
gust of wind. The men walked with faces bent sol- 
emnly over their burden. 

“She looks struck in death hersen, eh, Geordie? 
But see her step. Firm as an Indian’s! But her 
heart’s as dead as yon tree; the gale will .snap it from 
its root some day, an’ I’m a thinkin the American 
leddy ’ll fare the same. It’s a sair day fur a woman 
when she canna cry, nor wish to hev her say over 
her afflictions. She’s ben like some old man wi’s fut 
weel in the grave o’er the bairns, ever sin she opened 
her solemn 

“She’ll live, she’ll live!” said Geordie, setting his 
lips. “ But I’m thinkin’ she’ll be like the stone o’ the 
top o’ Chamcook yender — hard an’ cold, wi’ no 
growth of tender life anywhar. Yet what a breath 
of Heaven’s vera own air blaws round the mountain 
top. P’raps she needed the hand o’ the Lord.” 

“Hush, Geordie; I dinna b’lieve it. I dinna b’lieve 
its an afflictin’ hand. An I think ye do wrang to in- 
terpret the Lord when he allers prefers to work in 
secret. I tek it, it war a vary cowardly thing for 
Job’s friends to be sae sure of the reason he hed oc- 
casion to set on an ash heap.” 

“I war sayin’ nothin’ agin the leddy, but she be 
human, and we be all afflicted, a very one!” said 
Geordie, impatiently. “I be sorry for her, from my 
vary heart, I be I ” 


86 


jlfterWard. 


“It wild he better for Uvsboth to be prayin’ than to 
bcjedgin’ either the Lord or Ills childerii. There! The 
pair thing is out o’ sight. Pair bleedin’ heart 1 ” and 
Anne, wiping her eyes, went back into the cottage. 

“There is nothing more to do!” This is what 
Madeline said a week later to herself. She had laid 
her children beside others, young and old, who had 
been translated from St. Andrews. It was better so ! 
Their short lives had meant little to any one but her- 
self, and so she put them to sleep under the skies 
where they had grown strong and where they had 
been so happy, and under which her reveries would 
see them during the long, long childless days to come. 

There was little possibility that she could ever sell the’ 
house shehad begun, and so she decided to leave itjust 
as it was, and go away — go back! She would have 
preferred to travel on into those wilds stretching to the 
east and north, but a half-forgotten duty called her 
south with the grim restlessness of a nemesis. Duty 
thus far had been hard and cold. So was Madeline 
hard and cold again, and with little of the tremen- 
dous courage which had risen for the emergency a year 
before. She faced her duty because of her native 
rectitude. With the children gone, there was noth- 
ing else, and a duty, however unpleasant, was as 
easy as living. 

Do 3 "ou ask whether no love whatever for her 
husband impelled her? Yes; she loved him still. 


AFiEKVVARD. 


87 


Love lias stages, and phases in which it is more 
sure of itself when absent from the beloved. Under 
totally different conditions, and with the pressure re- 
moved which too strong a sense of either pity or dis- 
grace fosters in an independent nature, Madeline 
could forgive, and, what was pleasanter to her selfish 
nature, forget. Never for a minute to be able to for- 
get, and yet to forgive, — there was the difficulty. 
This was the possibility to which she was returning. 
She experienced a kind' of despairing triumph, as her 
journey brought her nearer and nearer home, that 
she felt so little and cared so little. She looked reck- 
less. She had no thought of being reckless. The 
provocation, though, was all that was needed. 

She bought a Boston paper, reading it with pain- 
ful minuteness. By-and-by, she came to the operatic 
news. There was a half column given to “The Fly- 
ing Dutchman.” Her past life seemed as endless, and 
the possible thirty or forty years yet to come as in- 
terminable and as unappropriated as the ages 
through which the accursed sailor wandered a 
stranger on the seas. Her time she could give, as 
that phantom gave his to steering a ship that could 
never sink. But herself — a possession of which she 
could never be rid. It had loomed up as large and as 
self-asserting and more unhappy than ever. Charity ? 


88 


AFTERWARD. 


Others more suffering? She thought her very touch 
must freeze. While she was thus thinking, the New 
York papers were brought in. 

“Buy a paper, ma’am and a bright-eyed boy 
held out a daily. 

She glanced at it idly ; her gaze fell on “Jacob Mid- 
dleton.’’ That was all. Why was her uncle in the 
papers? she wondered, as she opened her purse. Turn- 
ing her chair with its back to the aisle, she read : 

“Jacob Middleton died suddenly at his home on Fifth 
avenue, on Thursday morning. He was confined to the 
house for some time, the past summer, by a severe attack of 
illness, but recovered sufficiently to resume his business. 
Although feeling indisposed of late, he has not absented 
himself from his office, and was preparing to go there 
when he was suddenly taken ill. His physician was sum- 
moned, but he (lied in a few hours. Mr. Middleton was 
born at Woolston, Vt., where he lived till he was fourteen 
years old, when, having lost both his parents, he came to 
Xew York. Here he has ever since remained, gradually ris- 
ing through his business abilit\" and strict integrity to posi- 
tions of in’ominence and great responsibility. He was presi- 
dent of the Knickerbocker Bank Note Company, a director 
of the Ubiquitous Life Insurance Company, vice-president 
of the Guaranteed Postal Telegraph, Limited, and promi- 
nent in the chief organized charities of his denomination. 
His property, though not large according to the vast fort- 
unes of these days, nevertheless provides handsomely forthe 
following: Harvard University, $100,000; Christianiza- 
tion of Madagascar, $10,000 ; spread of current news in the 
Azores, $75,000; scholarship endowments for twentv-five 
colleges, $225,000 ; new townhall in Woolston, Vt.. $7,000 ; 
building and endowment of church property in Alaska, 
$140,000; Mr. Middleton’s only surviving relative is Mrs. 


AFTERWARD. 


89 


Henry P, Winchester, who is said to have an ample fortune in 
her own right, and to have fully concurred in her uncle’s 
noble charities. Mrs. Winchester is wintering in Algiers.” 

The paper dropped from her h ands. A ringing dizzi- 
ness made her close her eyes. She saw her Uncle 
Middleton as he had sat leaning toward her on that 
day when she came back from the prison. She heard 
his carriage roll away. Then out from the past 
came one and another disjointed memories. A 
straight-backed seat in church, and she, a little girl, 
sitting beside her uncle, her short, white skirts spread 
over her lap, one hand in his, and her feet falling 
asleep through the long service. Then she saw him 
on his knees at family prayers in the days when her 
aunt was living. Dear, gentle Aunt Mary ! Madeline’s 
heart unconsciously said, her ears full of his 
measured, solemn prayers. Then there was the first 
and last time she had ever seen tears in his eyes, that 
day they came back to his big, empty house after 
Aunt Mary’s funeral; those tears had awed her, 
shocked her with a sense of something awful. Then 
the Sunday night teas in her own home, with Uncle 
Middleton always at her right hand and insisting on 
taking his tea directly from her, with a just percep- 
tible softening of his pale blue honest eyes which gave 
her a sense that he loved her with a dogged faithful- 
ness that was blind even to her faults. How those 
memories stirred in her heart. 


90 


AFTERWARD. 


She turned her head to one side and opened her 
eyes, trying to choke off the spell, but the procession 
of past events moved on just the same. She seemed 
to see her uncle for the first time in her life as some 
one altogether outside of her own interests. Side by 
side with him now appeared her husband, from 
whose personality, heretofore, she had never been 
able to separate her own. Then she herself stood 
there — yes, she, Madeline! — all of them before her 
for judgment. 

She saw their faces; she viewed their acts; she con- 
structed their motives. Strange metamorphosis! 
There was more substantial goodness, the ring of a 
truer personality about Jacob Middleton than about 
either of the other two. A self denying, temperate 
life; a rigid adherence to a sense of duty; a stainless 
name and lawfully acquired wealth. Nothingindeed 
about it all to awaken great admiration ; but it was 
such an old uncle as this who had loved her. What was 
Henry to him abstractly? What moral obligation 
had her Uncle Middleton ever been under to Henry? 
Yet, if acts counted for anything, it was this uncle 
who had supplemented Henry’s business inexperi- 
ence; it was two-thirds of that rigid, self-denying 
life that had backed Henry’s pleasure-loving youth 
and early manhood. It was this old man, her uncle, 
who, loving her so much, had, because of that love, 
taken her husband so entirely for granted. The first 


AF'fERWAkD. 


91 


time that he had faltered, and broken, and sinned, — 
yes, Madeline’s judgment reiterated, sinned, — she 
had turned from him with whose life her’s had been so 
intensely interwoven, and had had no mercy for the 
provocation. Then she felt impelled to balance trait 
for trait; self-denial with self-seeking; frugality with 
prodigality; a man to whom God was ever his judge 
with a man to whom Wall and Broad streets were 
law and gospel. On one hand a narrow man, and 
on the other a man just as narrow; between them a 
woman who was moral ballast to neither. It was 
such a woman who forgave the one and refUvSed even 
a pitying word to the age of the other. 

The Madeline who saw these three persons before 
her tribunal, found none of them greatly deserving, 
but that outside Madeline found something more and 
more tangibly good about the old man silent in his 
grave than about either of the other two who had 
been overtaken in their self-seeking. 

Her pride took alarm. Had she wanted her T/ncle 
Middleton’s money after all? No, no! She was only 
too glad that it was scattered literally to the four 
winds. Not that!. Not that! She had money enough 
for all her simple needs, and how simple they seemed 
compared with her past luxury. She had enough to 
live on in some quiet country place— till — and could 
save a little from her income, too — for the larger 
need that would come with her husband at liberty. 


92 


AFTERWARD. 


* Thus her thoughts ran on and on, and the tram 
hurried over the tracks, and the night came; then 
the train stopped and every one got out, and 
Madeline rose and went into the night with a heart in 
which reigned the blaekness of a great darkness. 

She had intended to go to a hotel on her arrival, 
but a blind, unreasoning fear overtook her, as she 
stepped into the station. For the first time, her self- 
reliance failed. She could not go alone to a hotel. 
But where should she go? “The world thinks I am 
in Algiers — my world! ” And to herself, she seemed 
to break into a wild, mocking laugh. 

She hurried through the station, forgetful of bag- 
gage, forgetful of everything but the fact that she 
was afraid. She reeled all at once against a wall as 
she entered an arched way leading to the street. A 
policeman stepped up and looked curiously at her. 

“Call a cab for me,” she whispered. 

“ Where do you want to go ? ” asked the policeman 
as he helped her in. 

Then she thought of Mrs. Saxby. She thought of 
her kiss and of her tears, and she gave the number of 
Mrs. Saxby’s house. 

The new motion, and the fresh air, restored her par- 
tially. 

On entering the house, the lofty hall, the brilliant 
light, the staid butler, the warmth and silence and 
splendor of the interior all smote her with a strange, 


AFTERWARD. 


93 


far-away reality. She walked into the empty draw- 
ing-room as if in a dream; and like a refleetion out- 
side a window, apart and .surrounded by the dark- 
ness, but bright and clear, and so vivid, she seemed 
to see the old-fashioned maple bedstead with its 
white valance, high posts and feathery softness, and 
two rosy little faces cheek to cheek, sound asleep. 

She put her hand to her forehead and rubbed her 
eyes, but stillher feet trod the soft carpet — still that 
bed with her little ones avsleep in it, floated beside her. 
How did she get there, she began to ask herself, or 
was she in St. Andrews ? 

When Rebecca Saxby glided into the room, her gray 
dinner dress trailing its soft luster, her white, jew- 
eled hands extended to greet Madeline, she found 
Mrs. Winchester in the middle of the floor, her dilated 
eyes wandering right and left in puzzled, solicitous 
wonder. 

Madeline lifted both hands to her eyes and pressed 
them and looked again as Rebecca came forward, ad- 
vancing rapidly down the great length of the room. 
She stood still, her black garments outlining her 
iragile figure, her wandering eyes gleaming brighter 
for the paleness of her face. 

Rebecca’s heart palpitated with tender dread, as 
she put her arm around Madeline. 

“Dear, this is so sweet, so good of you. Come 
right up stairs with m^.” 


94 


AFTERWARD. 


Madeline’s lips quivered. Somewhere into the un- 
seen, that bed with its lost treasures vanished. With 
the need for mother-love and mother-care gone, and 
the cruel present weighing with awful force upon her 
weakness, the ebbing strength which she had sum- 
moned with heroic force in the cool drive through the 
city, left her, and, with a long, gasping, moaning sob, 
she threw herself into Rebecca’s arms. 

There is nothing sweeter, more restful or morehea’- 
ing than the friendship of one true woman for an- 
other in a time of great need. Then it is that the 
tenderness usually reserved for husband and children 
wells over in a stream of comforting care and almost 
jealous watchfulness that makes the bond ten-fold 
what it ever was before. 

Rebecca waved the butler out of sight as she led 
Madeline into the hall and supported her up the 
stairs. The soft pressure of her arm, her murmured 
endearments, soothed the aching, lonely heart. Re- 
becca undressed Madeline herself, chafing the cold 
feet with her warm hands, straightening out the long 
hair so streaked with gray, and making the thick 
braid bonny with a bright ribbon. 

When Madeline lay down between the fragrant 
sheets, feeling the restfulness that came from crying, 
Rebecca sat beside her holdingiu herown warm palm 
the nervous hand of the sick woman, stroking it 


AFTERWARD. 


95 


gently when the qni veering nerves gave a spasmodic 
twitch, and saying, “Cry more, dear. Cry yourself 
to sleep.” 

“Dear Mrs. Saxby,” said Madeline, and then 
sobbed a little, helplessh’. 

“Say ‘dear Rebecca,’ please,” and Mrs. Saxby bent 
over and kissed her. “You want some one nearer 
than Mrs. Saxby just now, and I feel so near to y( u, 
dear.” 

“Dear Rebecca, I think God sent me here to- 
night.” 

“I am sure he did. There, there! ” as Madeline be- 
gan to sob violent!}'. 

The swollen lids dropped finally over the weary 
eyes. The nervous hand fell helplessly on the counter- 
pane. ■ A long, halting, tired sigh crept from the 
tremulous mouth, too sad just now to show a trace 
of its proud endurance, and Madeline sank into a 
troubled sleep. 

Day followed day and still she lay there with no 
visible ailment, but too weak to sit up. She cried a 
great deal, but said little. 

Out of one tender woman’s strength, still untried 
by sorrow or misfortune, but With a simple, childish 
buoyancy that lavished its overflow with artless 
sweetness, another woman, with deeper founts of 


96 


AFTERWA.RD. 


feeling, drew a healing insight into possibilities 
adapted to the common needs of life, and which she 
had hitherto thought lightly of. 

What would the world do without the ordinary 
men and women? What would little children do 
without these tender hearted, practical natures that 
are interested in a thousand homely details and con- 
sequently create most of the beauty of our every-day 
life? 

When Madeline was at length able to sit up, and, 
after much coaxing, consented to drive with her 
friend in the park in the early morning while it was 
not frequented, her strength returned, and, with it, 
her convictions of dut\^ She grew restless. She 
grew afraid of indulging herself in the luxury of 
Rebecca’s tenderness; it was too relaxing for her 
needs. 

There is a depleting power in even true sentiment 
directed toward misfortune, unless it can lift the 
cloud or suggest an immediate issue out of the diffi- 
culty. Hence men with strong physical natures, in- 
stinctively realizing their own. powerlessness to rise 
above grief or loss, go away, and when' they return, 
even if they show scars, return well enough for the 
purposes of their life. Highly sensitive organizations 
without the balance of well-poised nerves, sit and 
brood over their insulated griefs, until their micro- 
cosm becomes a mighty world, and then their case js 
a hopeless one, 


CHAPTER VIII. 


' THE PRISON LADY. 

One morning early in January, Madeline announced 
her intention to depart. 

Rebecca, with a wise friendship, did not discourage 
her. But she did say : 

“You must come to me, dear, whenever you feel 
overstrained or discouraged.’^ 

“No, not for a long time, at least. I want to be 
forgotten in New York.” 

“Not that, surely. You only want to forget your- 
self. That will make all the difference in the world.” 

“Everything is too personal, Rebecca, to make for- 
getfulness possible. At first I thought I could brace 
myself to sorrow. It was like this with me a year 
ago.” She opened the book she had been reading. 
“Listen:” 

“How could she believe in sorrow ? If it attacked her, 
she felt the force to crush it, to defy it, or to runaway from 
it, as she had done already. Anything seemed more pos- 
sible than that she should go on bearing miseries groat or 
small.” 


7 


97 


98 


AFTERWARD. 


“I tried to crush it, Rebecc^i; I defied it from the 
moment my attention turned to 1113^ children. For 
their sakes, I ran away from it. It overtook me. It 
will be my companion for life. I see it, now. I am 
just to go on, \'ear after year, bearing my great 
misery, and it will bring the train of little ones. 
Feeling so, it is better to go away, even if it were not 
mydut3^” 

“Yes, dear, it is better. Still, you must conquer 
this condition ; it isn’t healthful.” 

“Yes, I think it is,” and Madeline shook her head 
mournfully. “I want to keep myself in a passive 
acceptance of the inevitable. I am not strong enough 
to hope; but I think I am strong enough to be hope- 
less.” 

“Wh}", dear, there is no such thing as the inevi- 
table,” said Rebecca, with the optimism of the happy. 
“ If I believed that, I would never lift a finger. Think, 
my darling, you have decided to be strong for two. 
To do that, 3'ou must be cheerful, and of course you 
cannot be cheerful unless you are hopeful.” ' 

“Ah, I can pretend for Henr3^’s sake for an hour or 
two at a time; but it means hours of solitude to get 
read3^ for it. I have thought it all out. I 01113^ feel 
safe in expecting nothing.” 

Rebecca stroked Madeline’s hand tenderly. “You 
poor, wounded bird !” Kissing her friend, she left the 


room. 


AFTERWARD. 


99 


Madeline departed the next day. She traveled the 
old road with its double memories again. 

It bad been a good thing for her to be ill, although 
the more sensitive condition she found herself in 
fretted her sadly. Tears were too near the surface. 

She did not intend to go to see her husband imme- 
diately on her arrival. She had no definite plan about 
him except that she expected to live near him, and 
then, when he was released, to go away with him. 

All that day she wandered through the pleasant 
town with its broad streets on the hill slope basking 
in the brilliant wintry sunlight. The ground was 
covered here and there with patches of ice. Eveiw- 
thing looked bright and calm and cold, as she would 
after she had fortified herself anew. 

She found, toward night, a furnished cottage in the 
heart of the town, but with an outlook over the river 
and the hill}' land beyond. Her former love of room 
and luxury taking possession of her, she hesitated a 
few minutes over whether its meager space was suf- 
ficient. . She took it, however. The less she had, the 
simpler her personal life, the better. This instinctive 
effort toward stoicism and self-denial was whole- 
some, although to Rebecca it indicated a sadly 
morbid condition. 

Whoever passes from one extreme to another, ex- 
cept in an extreme way ? Upheavals, whether inward 
or outward, imply radical conditions. 


100 


AFTERWARD. 


She settled down in thought and in reality to a 
simple, uneventful existence, unbroken by calls or 
letters. By spring, she had, to all intents and pur- 
poses, obliterated her past life. She had resumed her 
monthly visits to the prison. She did not get used to 
them, but she accepted them as inevitable facts for 
herself, and a necessary amenity for her husband. 

Her simple life induced still simpler habits of dress- 
ing. She grew interested in saving money for the final 
great need. Thus it happened, that without pre- 
vision, she assumed a costume that required little 
thought, meant almost no outlay, and was in con- 
sonance with the conditions of her life. Her black 
dress without plait or other trimmings clung to her 
in unadorned straightness. For the rest, her linen 
cuffs, a black shawf, and a simple black bonnet with 
its nun-like veil, completed her outfit. 

Weeks and months passed. Her face wore an 
inflexible calmness. It was hard and cold. A kind 
of stillness ensued when she stepped into the small 
shop to supply the needs of her simple housekeeping. 
Alter a while, quite unknown to herself, she wa4 
called “the prison lady.” Many a heart ached for 
her. Sometimes a wife, kneeling at night to say her 
prayers, in petitioning for her own husband, good 
and kind and honest, sent up a prayer for that 
solitary woman upon whose loneliness she dared not 
intrude. 


AirrERWARD. 


101 


spring and summer passed away. Two years were 
gone. The sete leaves strewing the large avenues 
and rattling down the slopes under the November 
winds, made her think of the double grave far away 
on that Canadian shore. It was almost a year now 
that she had been without her darlings. It was 
nearly a year since she had seen Rebecca. She had 
hardly spoken to a soul in months except the prison 
people and the shop-keeper. She had had books and 
magazines and newspapers, but they now refused 
the solace of forgetfulness. The sight of a book made 
her weary. The thought of going to bed filled her 
with dread. The long, sleepless hours, the heavy 
stupor with the dawn, the wild chasing of myriad 
thoughts through her mind, and her attention refus- 
ing to linger on any — she knew it all, and it filled her 
with horror. 

No temptation had ever seized her to lengthen her 
walks or modify her life. As it had begun, so it 
should continue to the end! And yet, how was she 
to endure the coming years? Their possibility in- 
spired her with unspeakable melancholy. 

She had reached a point, although she did not know 
it, when she had exhausted her resources. All the 
reserve force of her nature had been used, over and 
over. She felt a kind of spiritual and mental atrophy. 
At first, when the world despised or pitied her mis- 
fortune and her husband^s disgrace, she had said,* 


102 


AFTERWAi?!). 


even while her heart bled, “ What matters it? I am 
sufficient unto myself for all these bitter emergen- 
cies.” Then, when, with the children to love and 
protect, she had turned wavcringly to God, and he 
had taken the children from her, she ceased to pra}', 
and braced her very being against expectation. 

Her breaking heart, in the visits she paid her hus- 
band, had harrowed him, until, unknown to her, his 
nights overburdened with remorse, and his days with 
manual labor too severe for his constitution he was 
just as surely verging on physical prostration and 
mental imbecility as she was losing the power to 
either feel or think. 

With a startled horror in the rare moments now 
when she was susceptible, she realized the intellectual 
degradation attending apathy. Why, that was the 
condition of the men and women in the prison wards. 
The more desperate they were in wickedness, the 
more entire their hardness. A year before, Madeline 
had accused herself, over and over, of guilt equal 
with her husband’s. She had abandoned such a con- 
clusion through a rough logic, which separated the 
act from remote causes. Her own self-judgment be- 
came one thing, and that of the world another. In 
other words, she felt acquitted of guilt before her 
fellow-creatures, whatever the verdict of her con- 
science. As the poignancy of her remorse softened 
and she approached Henry less and less as a partner 


AFTERWARD. 


103 


in his crime, the sense of the sacredness of the vows 
she had assumed in marriage kept her from faltering, 
even in thought, from the outward claims of that 
union. Nevertheless, theories, new and heterodox, 
but coming back with a strange persistency, and then 
drifting away with aggravating vagueness from her 
tired brain, bad recurred to her. 

Was marriage a kind of fetich worship to many 
people? Was a woman a Hindoo suttee? Was a 
wife’s life to be warped or twisted out of harmonious 
social relations, or to be stained irremediably, because 
of a husband? Was not that wjiat Uncle Jacob 
Middleton had thought? No, not just that! He 
would have severed one from the other absolutely. 
That was not what she meant. What was it? 

She kneeled by her window, her face bowed on her 
clasped hands, her melancholy eyes watching the 
rushing wind clouds hurrying across the moonlit 
sky. 

Was it this? She looked into those starry depths 
as though she would question God himself. Was it 
not to stand* side by .side with her husband to the end, 
to suffer with him and to support him through love? 
And yet, notwithstanding, to grow into all that she 
could ])ossibly be in and for herself Was it this ? 

Many a woman less intellectual, and with far less 
moral stamina than Madeline had, would have 
reached such a conclusion intuitively, but her conduct 


104 


AFTERWARD. 


would never have equaled her intuitions. An act 
always represents the'dynamic force oftheconviction 
and decision preceding it. 

With a sudden, awful realization that her circum- 
stanees were becoming the measure of a real, per- 
sonal degeneracy, she gathered her dormant energies 
together and sat in sternest judgment on herself. 

Had she not read till she could read no more? Oh, 
yes, but what for! For forgetfulness. Had she not 
visited her husband whenever she was allowed ? Oh, 
yes, but what good had she brought him I She recog- 
nized all at onc^ his growing weakness, his con- 
tracted, hopeless view of life and self, his increasing 
love and craving for mere animal comforts, his 
almost senile rehearsal of the shameful past, and she 
saw her own effeminate acquiescence in all these 
states and conditions. 

O, what kind of woman was she ! 

A sense of humility, to which she had been a 
stranger, stole over her. A warm desire to be noble 
and courageous, that had in it no, sense of duty, 
animated her. Sornething which she was not filled 
her thought and awoke a spirit of simulation. 

There, before the window, in the darkness, her 
senses thrilled by the solemn beauty of the river, the 
sky, the hills folding in and out in bright or gloomy 
outline, she cried for help. Nothing more definite ! 
She hadn’t sufficient faith to make a particular 


Afterward. 


105 


prayer, but somewhere must be a God who might, 
perhaps, in general ways, fortify. To pray for happi- 
ness, for peace, for comfort, for hope, — why, these 
things seemed just as impossible gifts, as that Henr^^ 
was not in prison or never had been. But help she 
needed. 

A week before, she would have laughed in very 
bitterness of spirit if some one had said to her, 
“Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” Now the 
words occurred to her, as she knelt there, ashamed 
and emptied of herself. “ 0, if they were only true ! 
was all she could say. 

The next day was Sunday. She slept very late. 
Her one little maid brought her breakfast to her 
room, as was the custom, if she overslept. She sat in 
her wrapper drinking her coffee and looking out over 
the wondrous panorama of sky and land and water, 
thinking with a dreamy wistfulness of her old home 
further up the river, of the little church there where 
they had worshiped. Many a sabbath had come 
and gone unnoticed the past year. They had meant 
nothing to her. But now a bell, sweet and mellow 
and solemn, cut the autumnal clearness of the air 
with an echoing melody. What music! Soon a 
chime of silver-toned bells rang out, “Nearer, My 
God, to Thee.” 


i06 


afterward. 


She suddenly covered her white, thin face with her . 
hands. The tears th^t had been locked in icy depths 
burst their wintry bonds, and overflowed. 

Then the tune changed, and while one bell tolled a 
sweet refrain, the chimes played, “Sweet Hour of 
Prayer.” 

0, she had heard them Sunday in and Sunday out, 
but they had never spoken to her before. She re- 
peated the words again and again, “ Nearer, My God, 
to Thee.” 

“Is such a nearness possible? ” she asked herself, in 
all simplicity. Hours of prayer had been sweet to her 
esthetically. They had brought a certain comfort 
before her babies were taken, but to bring her nearer 
to' God, to open a tangible, personal relation between 
Him and her, they had never even suggested such a 
possibility. 

She got her prayer-book, and, kneeling, repeated 
the morning prayers aloud. The}^ were very beauti- 
ful, and they did seem to embrace every form of 
petition ; but something in her very heart was cry- 
ing for its own expression. She laid her head on the 
bed and thought. Then she tried to make her own 
prayer, but all her life she had used the prayer-book 
onl 3 ^ No words came that meant anything to her. 
She yearned to say something — something personal. 

“Nearer, my God, to Thee ! ” finalh% she said aloud, 
and, with the effort, a great sob convulsed her. Her 


AFTERWARD. 


107 


pride was broken. Over and over and over she 
moaned with ever-increasing intensit}", ‘'Nearer, my 
God, to Thee ! ” 

In her child-like ignorance of the blessedness coming 
from prayer, she cried out as questioningly and with 
the assumption of just as dark a mystery as those 
old Ephesians must have done when they erected 
their temples to the “Unknown God.” Ah, He.was 
unknown, but that native impulse, common to us 
all, and as impelling as famine, drove her in a right 
direction. 


CHAPTER IX. 


NEW SCENES. 

Who is this tall woman walking down the hilly 
streets of a town whose salient feature is a mon- 
strous granite pile, loop-holed with small windows 
that overlook, on one side, the Hudson, and on the 
other an intricacy of railway-tracks, machine shops, 
and grimy soil ? There is something familiar about 
those straight, black skirts, that clinging veil, and 
the long, free step. Shall we overtake her, aud, in 
passing, gain a furtive glimpse of her face? Ah, we 
know that face! We saw it several years ' ago, 
swathed in sphinx-like sadness and gloom, as we 
were hurrying to take a train. We saw it on a 
sound-boat, too, imbued with the same awful sad- 
ness, but softened by the purest of all affections. 
Surely it is that face, and yet how strangely different. 
The elastic airiness of the step reveals something 
kindred in the expression. There are the uplifted 
eyes, with the same transparency of depth. The 
dark hair, while just as abundant, is plentifully inter- 
mixed with gray. See, the sunlight has fallen on two 
108 


AFTERWARD. 


109 


silver bands outlining the temples. It is a very 
white, — no, not white, but very colorless face, and 
there are faint, arching lines across the forehead, and 
a tremulous droop about the chin. The pride of the 
mouth is redeemed — we might almost say sanctified 
— by its purity. We feel, as we look at that mouth, 
as if too much of the woman’s humanity had been 
eliminated. 

“Can you tell me, my good man, anything about 
that lady going down the street ? ” 

“The prison leddy? A deal raore’n I ken about 
meself. Ef ye ’ll wait till I shovil this bit of airth, 
it ’ll be the time fer noon, an’ I ken tell ye all yez 
wants to know, I reckon.’’ 

Michael spat on his hands, and, thus lubricated, he 
seized the shovel with them with mighty force, while 
the stranger stood at one side and watched the 
“prison lady” until she was lost to view. 

“Wull,” said Michael, at last, striding his short 
legs and resting his hands on his shovel, “she’s this 
kind of a wummin. She’s lived here goin’ on five 
year, an’ though she was more talked about, proba- 
ble, than any other wummin I know on, she’s more 
loved than ary other I ever heerd of. She could go 
anywhar, night or day, in this town. Everyone 
knows her by sight, an’, whilst she’s respeckit by all, 
there aint a poor, miser’ ble cretur anywhar thet 
others hez given up but thet she’s found an’ helped. 


110 


AFTERWARD. 


Mj ole wiirtimin thinks mayhap she’s Mary the 
Mother o’ Marcy herself come to bide a wee in the 
flesh; but thet’s idolatry, an I’ve stopped her agoin’ 
to sech lengths. I see yer a bit confused, sir, an’ I’ll 
come to the pint whar thee maist begin about the 
poor leddy. You’ve heern tell about Henry P. Win- 
chester, sint up fur six year fur forger}^! She’s his 
wife ! God pity her ! ” 

Michael’s diminutive blue e^^es filled. 

“Whan she fust kem here to look arter him, she 
lived like a heermit. Then she tuk to church goin’, 
an’ then the rector o’ her church, who is a vary God- 
fearin’ man, though I sa3^ it mesilf, an’ a good 
Catholic, too, he ingaged her in good works among 
the poor; but, ’dade, sir, he found her feet so shod 
wid marcy whin she once begun thet he hed leetle 
need o’ derectin’ her. Thin she sings ivery Sunday to 
the prisoners, an’ sech a meltin’ sound ez thet is. I’ve 
heern tell. I’ve niver heerd her, but her v’ice is music 
whin she spakes; an’ what must it be whin she 
sings? Thet’s the sum an’ substance o’ the prison 
leddy, sir.” 

Meanwhile Madeline had passed the familiar 
portals and was closeted with her husband behind 
those walls for the last time. 

“At eight this evening, a carriage will be sent for 
you, Henry, and to-morrow morning we will start 
for Quebec, and sail thence to Europe. Everything is 
ready.” 


AF'PERWARD. 


Ill 


'‘Ever\^thing but myself! ” 

He clasped his attenuated hands between his 
knees and closed his eves. 

“I thought 1 should die before to-day, and spare 
us both. This year of weakness without work has 
been the longest and the hardest. Madeline, you 
have been a saint. Send me off, to-morrow, an^^- 
where, and then go back into the world to live your 
own life.” 

“Too much inner blesvsedness has come to me 
through our trouble, dearest, for me to be at rest 
anywhere but at your side.” 

“It can’t be very long, Madeline.” He looked up 
apologetically. 

She gave him a smile of such sweet and tender 
assurance, that he turned away remorsefully. Who 
was this woman ? Was she divine, that she could 
stay with him ? 

“I must go now, Henry. It is only a few hours 
more.” 

The next morning, at daybreak, Madeline gave the 
key of her cottage to her weeping maid to deliver to 
the owner, and before the town began to stir, they 
were speeding north on a fast express. 

It cost her an effort to drop the convenient costume 
of years. She had torn herself with a wrench from 
the little cottage and the undeviating regularity of 
her daily life. Though she had been unhappy, §be 


112 


AFTERWARD. 


had at length risen altogether superior to environ- 
ment. It was also one thing to go to her husband 
for an hour at a time with a comforting presence. It 
might be quite another to tr3^ to live with him as an 
upholding presence. She did not doubt that her 
attention and care would fail but, the spirit behind 
the attention and care? What that was, day and 
night, would be the measure of her helpfulness. 

She thought that she had risen above mere physical 
needs and conditions; but, to her surprise, when 
they had started, she felt a thrill of freedom, a bodily 
elevation, an unpremeditated flow and rapidity of 
thought that did not modify her plans, but made her 
capable of their better execution. 

Fortunately, they were the only occupants of the 
drawing-room car. Sometimes she rose and walked 
up and down, her* kind and vigilant eyes upon her 
husband, who sat still, an invalid lassitude in his 
figure, his head back on the chair, his eyes seldom 
turning from the shifting scenery. She tried to fancy 
what his thoughts were, for his face gave her no hint 
in its somber and hopeless reticence. He had un- 
learned the power or the desire to communicate them. 
She had started for Europe without any plan beyond 
getting there; but, on that first day’s journey, she 
made up her mind that they would travel as far and 
as rapidly as her husband’s strength would allow. 
There is something in constant change of place that 


AFTERWARD. 


113 


weakens the sense of personal identity, and she saw 
in a flash, now, that this was what they both 
needed. The extreme and subjective limitations of 
her own life for the past five years made this as neces- 
sary for herself as for her husband— her child was 
her real thought. 

On landing they made their way, by frequent and 
easy stages, southward. 

Henry Winchester had not been abroad since he 
was a boy. At rare intervals a reflection from his 
youthful experiences would invest the present, and 
he would forget long enough to laugh and to fall into 
unrestrained conversation. 

He took a sudden fancy, on reaching Dover, to stop 
there. No sooner, however, had Madeline, with 
pleased alacrity, given his room a touch of home by 
unpacking more than usual than he begged her to 
repack and take the next boat across the channel. 

She felt tired. 

There was an air of such cosy comfort about their 
great, low-ceiled rooms, the fire-place with the skin 
rug, the white drapery of the beds, the roomy tables, 
large enough to rest her arms in reading or writing, 
and, best of all, the soothing wash of the waves 
under the windows; she would have been so glad to 
stop a few days. 

Anything was better, however, than the nerv- 
ous restlessness seizing her husband at the most 
8 


114 


AFTERWARD. 


unaccountable moments. Sometimes her ears rang all 
day with the suppressed groans that had awakened, 
her in the middle of the night. Not even the sea, 
that balm for so many aches, had soothed him to the 
unbroken sleep which she saw was vitally necessary. 

She repacked their trunks. Then she brought his 
coat and helped him on with it, brought his gloves 
and hat, and, donning her own wraps, said, with the 
hope of entertaining him till the time for crossing the 
channel arrived, “Come, let us walk on the pier.” 

He followed, like a child. 

Do you wonder ? P'0 r six years existence to him 
had meant unquestioning obedience and physical dis- 
comfort. Now he possessed physical comfort and 
companionship that was incarnate motherhood. He 
was in a condition to render implicit obedience, had 
Madeline commanded. That was furthest from her 
thought. Day by day, she felt and saw that the 
essence of manhood had departed. The striving for 
forgetfulness is such a negation of all the years that 
have gone. More and more she realized this. 

To be tender to him, to lead him away from himself 
by the path that had brought her to peace, this was 
her prayer and her one effort. 

The thousand homely devices she had to practice 
for the capricious moods of an invalid, linked her 
anew with the practical living that goes on like the 
tide, with undeviating recurrence. 


AFTERWARD. 


115 


They walked up and down the pier, up and down, 
up and down. 

The wind blew a gale. The green waves looked 
solid and cold. The few sailors and maids who 
lingered in sunny spots for what seemed a bleak 
courtship, were the only ones to keep them com- 
pany. 

Madeline intended to walk there till her husband 
was physically exhausted, but it proved a sore task 
for her. Her nervous endurance was great. Her firm 
hand could control his shaking one; her patience 
could lead his fretfulness, but, notwithstanding, the 
interminable walks, which were his chief recreation, 
kept her foot-sore and overtasked much of the time. 

She found a little amusement in the highkeyed 
English voices with their monotonous inflections. 
They reminded her of the tuning of a flute. She was 
never weary of studying the vivid color in the cheeks 
of young English women, or the plethoric, veined 
redness of the faces of older ones. The patches of 
bright pink, with the soaring white foreheads made 
her think of the impressionists with their vague 
dashes of intense color — all the finer for a little 
distance. Even the flowers in Dover seemed to have 
a wearisome vitality. The rose petals were thicker, 
the geranium blossoms were tougher, the life that 
run riot in door-yards and jardinieres belonged to 
the pale skies, the heavy, damp atmosphere, the 


116 


AFTERWARD. 


stone houses with their bright green shutters. .She 
longed for a rose, half of whose loveliness lay in its 
exquisite fragility and penetrating fragrance. It 
seemed to her at times as if those English flowers 
might suddenly, before her very eyes, don a pair of 
stout walking boots and go out lor a vigorous con- 
stitutional along the esplanade. 

The channel was choppy and the air raw when 
they resumed their travel. 

Again Madeline thought of the Flying Dutchman, 
and, for a second, a distant future projected itself 
upon her thought, when they would have traversed 
all seas and all countries and would begin the 
lengthy round anew. But this was an idle fancy, 
useless in its bitterness, and she dismissed it. 

A couple of hours later, when they were ensconced, 
the sole passengers in the compartment, in the op- 
posite corners of a first-class railway carriage, with 
the night folding its welcome darkness around them, 
she had a chance to rest. She awoke with the 
first gray light of the dawn. As they approached 
Paris her husband was still asleep. 

He half sat, half reclined, in a weary, crouching 
heap in the corner. His head leaned forward on his 
chest. His traveling cap had fallen off. The oil 
lamp in the ceiling of the carriage shed a sickly light 
over his face, whose expression gave her a shock* 
^he had seen it before, but it had been so fleeting. It 


AFI'ERWaRD. 


117 


was an absolute vacuity — something like a shadow, 
an eclipse of intelligence, undefined, yet awfull}^ per- 
vasive. 

She stood up and put on an extra shawl. 

“Dear, my dearest, wake up. We are in Paris. 
Henry ! Henry ! Wake up ; you are in Paris ! ** 

He opened his e^^es: looked at her with the sleepy 
stupidity of a child, then roused himself. 

“I must have slept soundly. Lately I think I have 
been sleeping better, for my thoughts come so slowly 
when I waken. Let me see — did you say it was 
Paris?” He looked at her with furtive incredulity. 
“Yes, dear, Paris ! ” 

There was enough in Paris to make them linger 
many days. They chanced upon no one w^hom they 
had ever known. Madeline’s fear of encountering 
former friends became quiescent ; but her loneliness 
was intense. A great depression seized her — ac- 
companied by a desire to be alone. Night and day 
now, for weeks, her vigilant care never relaxing, she 
had stayed by her husband’s side. Surely it 
would not be wrong to leave him for a few hours 
in order to gain strength and refreshment. “My 
Savior went away sometimes,” she thought. 

One morning after many an injunction to stay in- 
doors out of the damp and chilly atmosphere, and 
after arranging him on a lounge before a crackling, 
cheerful fire, and indicating articles in English and 


118 


AFTERWARD. 


French papers that he would find enjoyable, with 
kisses and pets, all of which he accepted with a gentle 
smile and an eloquent “thank yojj, thank you, dear; 
don’t disturb yourself further about me, I shall be 
all right,” she went out. 

Many have spoken of the solitude possible in a 
great city, but more have felt it. The innumerable 
raying out in every direction; the endless crowds, 
each person appearing animated by some intense 
purpose hurr^dng him onward; the blank, staring 
houses; the shop fronts, plethoric with color; the 
throng of vehicles threading in and out of the maze 
of life and movement; the sunlight overhead, like a 
pitiless inquisitive eye, — everybody but one’s self 
apparently at home. 

When Madeline stepped on the pavement, and 
paused irresolutely a moment, she saw a lad}^ 
approaching her who had been a guest at that fatal 
garden party. Although she had been steeling herself 
for years against such encounters, still, some element 
in her present mental condition, or a sense of the 
great distance in time and space separating her from 
those days, or a sudden, instinctive, unreasoning 
desire for just a word, a smile from somebody she 
had once known, made her linger and look. 

The lady came nearer, bearing down upon her 1 ke 
a ship at sea, stately, elegant, her quick e 3 ^e takingin 
all objects right and left. Madeline saw herself 


Al'TERWARD. 


119 


included, recognized, and discarded, and allso quickly 
that she had turned to walk down the street almost 
immediately to hide her discomfiture. 

She entered the Avenue de I’Opera before she became 
fully aware where she was. For the first time in 
years her pale cheeks burned with wounded pride, 
her lonely heart throbbed until she was compelled to 
stop in front of a flower-store to catch her breath. 
She had flattered herself, over and over, when dread- 
ing such possible encounters for her husband, that 
she herself had nothing to fear. She had suffered so 
many defeats, and had gone through so much self- 
examination, and had learned to love and reverence 
so much that was extraneous to self-interest, that 
she believed that small personal affronts would for- 
ever assume an impersonal quality. 

Was she to be fettered forever in spirit to this plane 
of belittling conventionalities? Was her measure of 
herself to be ever so remotely connected with another 
person’s mensiire? 

She came back into the Rue de Rivoli. The trees in 
the Garden of the Tuilleries, their long arms still 
clinging to a few yellow leaves, invited her inside. 
She liked the long, shady avenue of clipped trees on 
the terrace. Children with their nurses were walking 
hither and thither; their prim step, the old expression 
that comes so early to the PVench child, made her 
pity them their short youth. And God pitied the 


120 


AFTERWARD. 


fleet blossoming other joyous womanhood; yes, she 
knew He did. She knew that somewhere among the 
heavenly mysteries lay a loving solution to this riddle 
of her long discipline. She looked up into the blue 
sky softened with fleecy white clouds and pra^^ed, 
“My dear Lord, lift me out of this valley.^’ 

When she came to the fountains and flower-beds, 
and saw the still unfinished palace, her thought 
reverted to the horror of the commune, and she 
prayed again, “Thy kingdom come.” Prayer had 
become the habit of her mind. 

She paused before one of the sphinxes sitting in 
symbolic guard over the wing of the Louvre over- 
looking the Seine and the Gardens. Its cold, judicial 
face and alert eyes looking askance and seeming all 
embracing, were indicative enough of power. When 
would the power of nations and rulers and of every 
human being become spiritualized? When would 
good deeds and right thoughts and pure aspirations 
measure all power that men would glorify? 

She went down the Quai du Louvre, and, entering 
the square on which the Gallery du Louvre faced, 
passed into the Pavilion Denon, walked through the 
long hall of sculptures, slowly ascended the great 
staircase, entered the Salle Duchatel, and there 
stopped before a picture by Ingres of a winged and 
clawed being with an exquisite woman’s face, but 
with something of the tigress in it. In the foreground 


AFTERWARD. 


121 


was a young man fascinated the treacherous 
beauty. Underneath the winged creature, whose 
claw was slightly uplifted, and half concealed in 
gloom, was a cave from which human skulls and 
bones protruded. Hurrying out of the cavern was a 
monk, his head turned back in warning to the youth, 
the blue sky and landscape without in peaceful con- 
trast with the uncanny beauty and horror within. 

Madeline -looked and lingered. Her husband’s 
temptation and defeat were before her, symbolized. 
That horrible vault filled with bones seemed like the 
catacomb of all possible crimes. 

She passed on, tears blinding her eyes. She opened 
the door of the Salon Carre and glided in. She knew 
what she wanted there — one face, one inspiration, 
before she returned to her duty, never again to leave 
it, she said to herself, while it remained. For what 
had she gained thus far in her solitude but heart- 
aches ? 

She sat down on one of the velvet divans under the 
immense picture of the Feast of Cana, by Veronese, 
and slowly, solemnly, as if in very communion with 
the suffering and release embodied there, lifted her 
eyes to Murillo’s incomparable Assumption. 

That was no youthful Madonna. There was no 
common sorrow. There was a mature woman in 
whom tremendous grief ^nd resignation had so 
wrought that, with Heaven open, its clouds uplift- 


122 


AFTERWARD. 


ing her, the vision of God before her amazed, trans- 
ported gaze, the weariness of a whole dife-time still 
showed in her frail countenance. Madeline beheld 
the attitude of feeble, humble, tremulous hope and 
supreme adoration in the sorrow-stricken, delicate 
face. Yes, even the mother of incarnate God had been 
afflicted in direct proportion to the magnitude of her 
blessedness. 

What peculiar fiery trial had Murillo undergone, 
she wondered, to be able to portray such a face? She 
sat there a long time, her hands clasped in her lap, 
her wistful, mournful eyes trying to pierce the heart- 
depths on that immortal canvas. 

The curious mixed life and movement went on 
around her unheeded. Parties with guides entered, 
gave a lingering, cold, unmoved look at the artistic 
genius of centuries, dawdled on toward the next gal- 
lery with the insatiable and satiated appetite of the 
wanderer traveling for cultivation, and failed to 
catch a breath of meaning from the intellectual con- 
ceptions that would still be hanging there for the 
chosen few, when their dollars had been passed over 
to other money-getters as stupid, and they them- 
selves laid forgotten under memorial marbles. Artists 
of both sexes and all ages sat around on high stools, 
all with the professional neglige arrangement of hair. 
Blonde misses in serene, ambitious cheerfulness, 
posed, palette in one hand, and measuring-rod in the 


AKTKRWARD. 


123 


other, before master-pieces of embodied passion, and, 
in copying outline, failed to see that neither Raphael 
nor Titian nor Veronese gave their youth the secret 
behind repose and color and composition. Here and 
there was a genuine worshiper of true art. 

Madeline had entered the gallery with as reverent 
a spirit as she would have done some stately temple. 
Her communion ended, she rose irresolutely yet calm 
once more. As she turned awa\' with one last, 
lingering look, she slowly lifted her eyes in passing 
toward the door, and, for a second, halted, so in- 
tense was the inquiring, unconscious gaze which 
a'rrested her attention. 

man of middle age .stood leaning against the 
west wall where he had paused to survey the master- 
pieces of that rare collection, nearly all of which 
were visible from his point of view. Madeline’s 
rapt, abandoned .study of the Murillo had di- 
verted his attention. Presently he found her 
deeply interesting and soon became as much engaged 
in a constructive process of thought as she. No- 
where, during years of travel, had he seen such a 
woman. The ubiquitous American had met him 
everywhere, yet here was a countr^^-woman with 
something as new about her, even in that frequented 
spot, as if he had met her unconventionally and 
alone in her own drawing-room. That she was a 
woman of drawing-rooms, he was sure. That she 


124 


AFTERWARD. 


felt herself to be absoluteh^ alone, and wished to be 
alone, he was also sure. But, so great was his in- 
terest, that, as she passed out through the crimson 
fan doors, nothing but the vulgarity of the thing 
detained him from following her. 

“Frozen fire,” was his comment as he sauntered 
from one painting to another, studying them con- 
scientiously, but seeing only the woman who had 
awakened his curiosity. He made the round of the 
gallery. If he had been asked how long it had taken, 
he would have said a half hour. He had spent, in 
reality, but fifteen minutes. And now, his honor 
telling him that she must have passed out of sight 
long ago, as she had of course taken a vo/ture, he 
also left the gallery, but, with artless inconsistency, 
lost no time in doing so. Temptation had overcome 
him, although he refused to acknowledge it. He 
came out on the great square on which the Pavilion 
Denon opens. He looked toward the various arch- 
ways conducting to an inner court and to the Rue de 
Rivoli. Far across the sunny space, just under the 
shadow of one of the arches, he thought he saw a 
gray skirt fluttering in the wind, and the long, 
swaying, gliding outline so characteristic of 
Madeline. Not one woman in a thousand walked 
like that. He sprang into a cab. 


CHAPTER X. 


THE TABLES ARE TURNE:D. 

When Mark Dascom reached the Rue de Rivoli, 
there was not a trace of the mysterious woman. He 
^ot out, sauntering on aimlessly toward the great 
hotel center. Coming out on the Place Vendome, he 
saw a small crowd gathering around its huge 
column. Elbowing his way through, Dascom found 
that the disturbance was caused by an American 
whom a guard was questioning about his hotel. 

Dascom looked with a curious, dawning recogni- 
tion at the extremely slight yet shrivelled figure 
standing there, his fastidiously gloved hand pressed 
against his cheek, his puzzled, troubled eyes seeking 
in vain in the mazes of his benumbed memory for the 
locality that evaded him. 

Suddenly his brow cleared. Dropping his hand in 
relief, he exclaimed, “I have it! I have it! lam 
stopping at Hotel Beaujon.’^ 

“Why, my good man, that went to pieces twenty 
years ago ! ’’ 

Then the volatile crowd sent up a laugh. 


126 


AFTERWARD. 


‘‘See here, gend’amie,” said Mark, advancing. 
“I know this gentleman. If you will allow me. I’ll 
find his friends.” 

The policeman hailed a cab, placed the bewildered 
and unresisting man inside, and then stepped aside 
for Mark to enter, who gave the driver orders to go 
to the Champs Elysees. “I will drive around a while 
till he gets over his fright,” he said to the policeman, 
in explanation. 

Thev came out in a few minutes on the immense 
square of the Place de la Concorde. The magnificent 
fountains were playing in the sunlight. The obelisk 
was like a needle dividing the space between the 
Madeline and the Chamber of Deputies. Before them 
stretched the vast promenade of the Champs EK^sees, 
the triumphal arch of Napoleon rising like a great 
gate to bar the gradual ascent of the stately avenue. 
On either hand, as they bowled over the smooth 
pavement, were rows of fine shade trees, under which 
sat throngs of pleasure seekers. Fountains shone 
through the trees, strains of music came from opei 
air bands, an endless melee of carriages rolled in 
every direction. Paris was its gayest. In the midst 
of this turn in his affairs, Mark momentarily forgot 
the lady who had so aroused his interest in the Salon 
Carre. 

Meanwhile, let us retrace our steps a little, 


AFTERWARD. 


127 


When Henry Winchester found himself from under 
supervision for the first time in years, a curious but 
natural mental process set in. While with Madeline, 
his affection, and the dependence growing out of 
failing powers, rendered him very amenable to direc- 
tion. Her oversight was so delicate and so unob- 
trusively withdrawn the instant it chafed, that, 
although there had been warning signals hung out, 
so to speak, no open friction had occurred. Three 
ideas were, however, gradually and secretly gaining 
possession of his befogged brain. 

The greed of gain, which had led him to commit a 
crime, was now converted into a gradually increasing 
watchfulness of Madeline, lest she should spend too 
much money. The idiosyncracy had grown so im- 
perceptibly and had reacted so subtly on her, that 
she was unconscious of how often she ordered a 
delicacy for his palate and went without herself. She 
had grown so used to repression, that hesitation' 
over the loss of some creature comfort would have 
made her smile. Not so with Henry. If a thing were 
bought for him and for him alone, the whole com- 
plexion of the case was altered. He was ill. Like 
many another invalid who is, however, perfectly 
sane, his selfishness grew in exact proportion to the 
care lavished upon him. At periods when his memory 
lapsed more than usual, he was incapable of retain- 
ing any combination of figures. The bilks which he 


128 


AFTKKWARD. 


insisted on overlooking were invariably fabulous and 
wrong; but he would finally submit them to his wife 
to settle, with reiterated cautions not to allow her- 
self to be cheated. 

Lurking in the dim back-ground of his belief, was 
also the idea that he had ot only forged, but that 
he had forcibh' stolen. Then came the notion that he 
had murdered the man from whom he had stolen, all 
of which, however, no one knew. These horrible 
facts must be kept from Madeline, so great was his 
constant, secret fear that she would desert him. 
Saddest of all, he was less and less conscious of affec- 
tion, but more and more desirous of her -care. A 
growing anger, moreover, but carefully veiled, pos- 
sessed him because of her surveillance. 

Madeline’s large, womanly nature enfolded this 
growing weakness and imbecility with charity. His 
reticence was gentleness to her. His unquestioning, 
almost ehild-like acceptance of all she lavished upon 
him, trust. His pitiful economizings were but the 
reaction from heavy loss, which could not mean any 
personal slight to her, or callous indifference to her 
comfort. 

She had been gone but a few minutes, when an 
insatiable desire seized him to see Paris for himself. 
The places visited in his youth rose vividly before 
him. He donned his coat and gloves with trembling- 
alacrity. 


AFTERWARD. 


129 


When Madeline reached the hotel, she hastened to 
their rooms, a gentle apology for having been gone 
so long ready to fall from her lips. To her surprise, 
she found them locked. She put her lips to the key- 
hole and cried softly, “Henry, Henry! “ No answer. 
Was he asleep? Had he gone out alone? She rattled 
the brass door-handle. She put her ear to the key- 
hole. Not a sound. A maid passed through the 
corridor. 

“If you please! ” called Madeline, arresting her at- 
tention, “go to the concierge for me and ask if the 
key of 65 is in the office.” 

“0«y, MaJame,” and the maid hastened away to 
return presently with the key. 

Madeline admitted herself and then looked around 
the vacant rooms. The books and papers lay where 
she had left them. • “He must have gone soon after I 
did, “she thought. A dull, responsible fear seized her. 
What if harm should come to him. 

There was nothing to do but wait. Pretty soon 
she requested of the concierge when Mr. Winchester 
went out. “Did he leave word when he would be 
back? ” 

The concierge shook his head negatively. 

Meanwhile Mark Dascom had an immense curi- 
osity about his companion. He had known Henry 
Winchester seven years before as one of the most 
conspicuous figures on Wall street. Not having the 


130 


AFTERWARD. 


slightest personal acquaintance with him, Mark 
found no present clue for introducing himself. His 
companion seemed so perfectly acquiescent in his 
society, that he thought it wise, on the whole, to let 
well enough alone for the present. When they 
reached the summit of the ascent of the Champs 
Elysees, and were passing around the grand arch, 
Henry broke the silence. 

Greatest broker in human life the world ever saw. 
If he hadn’t been so scientific in his operations, 
Napoleon would have been called a murderer. Ha, 
ha, ha! ” 

You understand brokers, I see,” said Mark. 

*‘0, within safe limits. Of course, of course! All 
men are brokers. What kind of stock do you specu- 
late in ? ” And he turned sharply toward Mark. 

“I am one of the few who have n^t learned to specu- 
late.” 

“Well, let me explain it to you. It’s the only way 
to make money now-a-days. It’s a kind of universal, 
legalized robbery, legalized after the English method— 
by precedent. There are political brokers, and grain 
brokers, and social brokers. Now my wife is socially 
short, just now, all because I went in for longs at the 
wrong moment. Madeline has a lot of money, 
though. But I have to watch her. She’s very ex- 
travagant. Ordered dinner last night for two, 
when there’s plenty if you order for one, She loses 


AFTERWARD. 


131 


her appetite when I make her economize in that way. 
I always have enough! You see, when you have 
once suffered a loss,” and Henry took hold of Mark’s 
coat and pressed his long, thin face forward, “it 
makes a man careful. Women can’t understand the 
risks. We walk everywhere, Madeline and I, when 
we are out together. It does me good and gives her 
the fresh air. She has a great fancy for driving, 
though, in Paris.” 

“I would like to meet your wife,” said Mark. 
Henry looked at him suspiciously. Presently he 
said, with a shrewd gleam in his eyes, “You would 
not enjoy my wife. She is one of these home bodies 
who have little to say and wh 6 think little. ‘The com- 
mon round, the daily task! ’ — that sort of woman.” 

“Is she so very plain, then? ” 

Henry contracted his lids and looked knowingly 
through two long, narrow .slits at Mark. “Sup- 
pose we drop the conversation about my wife. 
Where are you taking me ? ” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Do n’t know ! Then drive to the Hotel Beaujon.” 

“There is no such hotel, my good man.” 

“Don’t talk nonsense. Why, it’s the best known 
hotel in Paris. I’m hungry.” 

“We’ll go to the cafe in the Bois. We can get some- 
thing good there,” 


132 


AFTERWARD. 


“Order for one! Order' for one! “ cried Henry fa- 
cetiously. 

“ Do you wish me to order? “ 

“You might as well, “said Henry, carelessly. Then 
taking out a purse which Madeline took care should 
always be well supplied, he counted his money over. 

“You horrid, physical wreck,” thought Mark, eye- 
ing his companion sidewise. “Whatever Madeline 
may be, she is a saint to take eare of you.” 

The long afternoon shadows had begun to slant 
under the thickly planted trees of the Bois de 
Boulogne, when they turned back to the city, Mark 
as nonplussed as ever about his companion’s hotel. 
There was nothing to be done but to stop at random 
at some of the most prominent ones. 

The throngs in the Champs Elysees were greater on 
their return. The earriages in the Plaee de la 
Coneorde were more numerous as they made their 
exit in front of the palaee of the Minister of Marine, 
whence they drove down the long, straight, beauti- 
ful Rue de Rivoli. To the right were the historic 
gardens, to the left the long, monotonous lime-stone 
buildings with their interminable arcades and gam- 
brel roofs looking as though they could accommo- 
date a whole eity full themselves. They kept on the 
Tuilleries side of the street. As they approached the 
Hotel Meurice, Mark casually looked along the 


AFTERWARl>. 


windows above the entre-sol. There, as if in a 
frame, was the lady whom he had seen in the Salon 
Carre. 

His usually cool blood tingled. He bade the driver 
stop, and, getting out, conducted Henry into the 
hotel. 

“Ah, Mr. Winchester, glad to see you!’’ said the 
clerk, advancing with that domestic interest in 
details common to foreign hotel officials. “Mrs. 
Winchester has been here several hours.” 

Mark and the clerk exchanged glances. 

“I thought you would find the Beaujon,” said 
Henry, turning to him triumphantly. Then, with a 
sudden access of dignity, now that he felt at home, a 
vague marshaling of courtesy and breeding, he held 
out his hand, expressed much obligation for the 
pleasant day he had enjoyed and withdrew. 

Mark lingered in the office. He glanced over the 
register for three months back. He could get no 
probable or possible clue to the lady whom he had 
seen, in the wilderness of names from all parts of the 
United States. He did not care to make inquiries. 
When he closed the book, the clerk said, “Isn’t there 
something the matter with that gentleman here?” 
He laid his hand on his forehead. 

“A great deal, a great deal,” said Mark emphat- 
ically. “He needs a man to care for him.” 


iu 


AFTERWARD. 


“He has only his wife with him. He will kill her if 
he doesn’t kill himself or die soon. As sly as a fox, 
and as malicious. She knows it least of anybody, or 
appears to do so. He would have been turned out 
of the hotel a dozen times if it had n’t been for her.” 

“ What does he do ? ” 

“She pays the bills; why, I don’t know, unless it is 
because he isn’t sound. But w^e get a letter from him 
almost every day accusing us of theft and asking us 
to make all kinds of impossible deductions.” 

“Have they any friends in the hotel? ” 

The clerk shook his head mysteriously. 

“I know all about him, but I have never met Mrs. 
Winchester.” 

“I wish you would ask to see her, and, if you can, 
give her a bit of advice.” 

“I can do that, I suppose. I’ll come around this 
evening,” said Mark, after a moment’s reflection. 

When Henry Winchester got out of the lift, he looked 
around with such confused uncertainty, that the man 
said, “I’ll show you the way, sir.” 

On reaching his parlor door, he waved his guide 
imperiously away. The idea, or rather an idea of 
Madeline had never been clearer in his mind than at 
this moment. It was high time to stop the con- 
spiracy, of which she was doubtless the center, 
against his. rights and his manliness. More and 
more, the crime which he had committed was shifted 


AFTERWARD. 


136 


in his suspicions to those around him, and in its wake 
trooped companion sins, united or separated, accord- 
ing to the vagaries of a diseased brain. 

When he opened the door, only a spark was needed 
to kindle the flame. 

Madeline provided that spark, without uttering a 
word. She turned from the window where she was 
still lingering, but with a look of such anxious solici- 
tude and inquiry, that his dignity, on the alert, 
vouchsafed no explanation. He strode past her, his 
head uplifted, ignoring her completely. 

‘‘Where have you been, Henry ? 

“Where did you go, Madeline?” 

“ To the Louvre, to see the paintings.” 

He removed his coat and gloves with nonchalant 
deliberation, strutted past her to the sitting-room, 
drew an arm-chair before the fire, and, taking apaper, 
began to read. 

She sat down bedde him, her hand on his arm. 
“ Dear, where have you been ? ” 

“ Why do you want to know ? ” he at length conde- 
scended to reply, an angry, suspicious light in his 
eyes. 

“No matter, if you do not wish to tell.” 

“Then why have you asked, and asked, and asked, 
if it is no matter? You must stop this interference. 
Are you jealous ? I can’t stop to explain every detail 
of my business and whereabouts to you. I bave im- 


130 


Al^ERWARD. 


portant business, just now. If you read the papens 
more, you would know that a great theft has been 
committed about whieh the Bourse is in arms. 
They suspect an American. Don’t — don’t you tell.” 
and he held up his finger warningly, as his fancy be- 
gan to evolve the story. “I believe I am on track 
of the man; looks as honest as the day! But I 
always suspect these open-faced men. I never told 
you, Madeline, that I was once superintendent of 
prisons for six years. That gave me a wonderful 
insight into criminal physiognomy. Now this man 
has frank blue eyes, a generous smile, expansive 
chest. You wouldn’t think he had a secret or could 
have one to look at him. Those are the men to sus- 
pect. No, don’t question me. You must try to get 
used to being alone, after this,” and he laid his hand 
with a grand assumption of paternal authority on 
hers. “I shall be away a great deal while we are in 
Paris.” 

She rose and went into the adjoining room. They 
must go away again, that was certain. The noise 
and excitement of the city were too stimulating. 

She had dreaded his lapses of memory concerning 
the past, but now, to have that past return con- 
verted into active suspicions of herself and others, 
was intolerable and dangerous. 

She had called in no physician as j^et, for she had 
believed that there would simply be a gradual and 


Afterward. 


137 


final loss of mind, but his strength had been so much 
greater the past few days, that, in the event of 
physical health and mental aberration, only one thing 
remained to be done. 

She sat down and wrote a description of her hus- 
band’s case to an eminent specialist, and, sending the 
note, ordered dinner, which passed in the usual quiet 
way. 

The dinner had been removed. Numerous candles 
were burning on the mantel and the round table 
drawn near the fire. The lights were repeated in the 
mirrors that paneled the doors and filled every avail- 
able large space on the wall. 

Henry Winchester, in slippers and maroon dressing- 
gown, reclining in a large arm-chair drawn between 
the fire and the table, looked frail but not especially 
ill in the midst of the warm color and light. The 
London Times, and the Standard lay on the table. 
Preparatory to reading the Nineteenth Century, he 
was leisurely cutting the leaves. Everything Ameri- 
can in their reading had been dropped by mutual con- 
sent. 

Madeline walked slowly up and down, an ab- 
stracted air under the smile she had learned to wear. 
She lent a richness and dignity to the room. The 
faint rustle of her black silk emphasized her carriage. 
The full lace at her throat and wrists softened the 
exceedingly delicate contour of her face and hands. 


138 


AFTER WARi). 


Her eyes had an expression as if they had absorbed 
much light and were giving it gently forth. She at 
least had the pleasure of the stoic. There is nothing 
illogical, scientifically considered, when a woman of 
thirty-five transfers her hopes to an inevitable con- 
dition certain to be hers at the end of another 
thirty-five or forty years. To the nature essentially 
hopeful, any period seems comparatively short, pro- 
vided it either promises, or appears to promise, a 
definite fulfillment. Madeline, in her walk, was 
bridging over the rest of her life with an intention 
of patient waiting. She saw only the shore on either 
side of the gulf; the depth and volume and temper of 
the stream between she believed she could brave ; that 
was all. That it was a pleasant stream, promising 
other than spiritual healing and refreshment, she had 
long ago ceased to think. 

Her reveries were disturbed by a knock. 

Henry promptly cried, “entree.” 

A servant appeared with a visiting card. 

“Bring the gentleman up,” said Mr. Winchester, 
before Madeline could shake off her preoccupation. 

“Who is it, dear ? ” 

He shrugged his shoulders, spread out his hands, 
and by his gestures disclaimed all knowledge. 

In another moment, Mr. Dascom entered, in even- 
ing dress. His broad, erect form, and a certain open- 
ness of expression, made Madeline at once recognize 


AFTERWARD. 


Icy* • 


the gentleman her husband had described. She also 
remembered that it was he whose gaze had arrested 
her attention in the Salon Carre. 

The caller approached Henry with an energy and 
directness of address which received a check when 
the latter, bowing slightly but inquiringly, placed n 
chair for him, giving no indication, by an introduc- 
tion, of his wife’s presence. 

Dascom began to feel in a foolish dilemma. Why 
should he trouble himself about this man, simply be- 
cause Winchester was an American? He bent over 
for a second to warm his hands, and in doing so, 
glanced at Madeline for the first time. A perceptible 
flush mantled his brow. 

called, Mr. Winchester,” said Mark, after a little 
preliminary conversation on the insularity of the 
English papers, “to, inquire, as a fellow-countryman, 
whether you would not continue the acquaintance 
we began so pleasantly to-day, by driving with me 
to-morrow.” 

“I should be most happy to drive with you, my 
dear sir, but you must be laboring under a misap- 
prehension. It was not I who made your acquaint- 
ance.” Henry softly rubbed his hands together, 
laughing with a tantalizing facetiousness. 

Mark looked over to Madeline for a second. What 
would she think of him? However, that made little 
matter. The sequence of events would vindicate him . 


140 


AFTERWARt). 


‘"Perliaps you do not recall me. I was only one of 
many who sought an introduction. Doubtless you 
did not notice me particularly. I hope I am not in- 
truding, Mr. Winchester.” 

”0n the contrary, Mr. Dascom.” 

“Let me see,” said Mark, after a pause. “I sup- 
pose, now that I have stumbled here, that it would 
be the proper thing for me to present credentials. I 
happen to have a few in the way of letters.” Put- 
ting his hand in his breast pocket, he again looked 
over to Madeline, as if appealing for pardon. “Ah, 
here is one from Mr. Lowell. I have been his guest 
in London. Here is also an invitation to dinner 
from the Turkish ambassador.” 

“ Pray do not trouble yourself furtVier,” said Henry 
graciously. “My dear,” to Madeline, who rose and 
came forward, “allow me to present Mr. Dascom to 
you. My wife, Mr. Dascom.” 

There was not a trace on Henryks face of any recol- 
lection of his conversation concerning Madeline. 

For the first time in years, she felt an overpowering 
need of advice and assistance. Whoever this Mr. 
Dascom was, he inspired her trust, and, yielding to 
her intuitions, she extended her hand cordially. 
“We have had so few callers since we have been 
abroad that I hope you will give us the pleasure of 
spending an hour or two with us, if you have the 
time to do so.” 


AFTERWARD. 


141 


‘■ We have been very much limited to each other’s 
society on account of Mrs. Winchester’s health. 
However, I think she is strong enough now for a 
little more variety.” 

For a second, a look of amazement flashed across 
Madeline’s face. Then, with a glance at Mark, in 
which the soul of a despairing woman was revealed, 
she said, “I am extremely anxious to go further 
South now. I need a milder climate.” 

‘‘This is just the season for Nice,” promptly re- 
plied Mark, divining her meaning. “If you have 
never been there, I can assure you beforehand that 
nothing is more charming than the way the bay 
curves in there to meet the esplanade. Palms and 
pepper-trees, flowers and cactuses make the place 
tropical. The mountains, rising steeply behind the 
town, are like a vast wall, shutting off* the north 
wind. 0, you would be delighted with Nice.” 

“Shall we go to Nice?” Madeline laid her hand 
on the back of her husband’s chair. 

“Certainly, if you wish. As I am a physician, Mr. 
Dascom, I have treated my wife myself. As a rule, 
diversion is a better tonic than any medicine. My 
wife was seriously threatened with nervous prostra- 
tio.n before coming abroad; but perfect quiet and 
change of scene have worked wonders. She is very 
easily fatigued still. From being very robust, she 
has grown exceedingly slight.” In his new char- 


142 


AFTERWARD. 


acter lie took Madeline’s thin hand with a curious 
blending of professional and conjugal solicitude. 

Mark remained a half-hour, and then, rising, re- 
newed his apologies for calling. While thus engaged, 
a servant again n.ppeared, and this time with the 
card of Dr. Rudolph Amiens. 

Excuse me,” said Mark, earnestly, as Henry read 
the name aloud; “if you expect Dr. Amiens, I will 
linger a moment longer. Dr. Amiens is one of my 
warmest friends.” 

“Ah, don’t let us detain you, although I am ex- 
tremely delighted to have met you. I esteem the 
hospitality of your call very highly. Do n’t wait. I 
hope we shall meet again on our return from the 
South. In fact,” added Henry, rubbing his hands 
again, and marshalling Mark toward the door, “this 
is a professional visit on the part of Dr. Amiens. I 
believe his time is so very limited.” 

“Pray remain, Mr. Dascom, if it will make you 
feel more at ease,” interrupted Madeline. “Surel3% 
dear, Dr. Amiens can stay five minutes longer, more 
or less.” 

“ Wife, you little appreciate the harassing claims 
on a physician’s time and strength.” 

“At least we ought not to keep the gentleman 
waiting. Ask Dr. Amiens to come up, Annois.” 

“I promise you to leave as soon as Dr. Amiens has 
given me bis verbal certificate of good character,” 


AFTERWARD. 


143 


said Mark, laughing. “Let me assure you, Mr. 
Winchester, that I fully appreciate your professional 
courtesy.^’ 

Henry bowed with the empressement of a French- 
man. 

Dr. Amiens now entered. 

“I am delighted to see you. Doctor. Dr. Amiens, 
Madeline. You see. Doctor, my wife feels that her 
case demands the attention of a specialist.” 

“Ah, Monsieur Dascom!” now said the little 
doctor in astonishment. “Do I see you once more? 
What a pleasure! I did not know you were in 
Paris.” 

“I arrived only yesterday.” 

“And I was not immediately informed ? ” 

The nervous little Frenchman spread out his 
hands, closed his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, 
dropped his chin and expressed a cyclopedia full of 
regi'ets in a minute. 

“Dr. Amiens, I have committed a social blunder 
which I will explain to you later. Kindly introduce 
me as fully as possible to Mr. and Mrs. Winchester.” 

“Introduce Monsieur Dascom? ” — thiswitha look 
of arch raillery and flattering intonation that was 
irresistible. “Introduce the chief proprietor of that 
great journal, Le Soir ? Introduce the most popular 
American in pur professional Farisiaq circles? 


144 


AFTERWARD. 


Introduce the president of the Franco-American 
Caspian Sea Oil-Propelling Company? Really, my 
dear friend, this is absurd ! ” 

“There, there!” said Mark, raising his hand in 
dismay. “I will call to-morrow. Doctor.” 

“No, no. Dine with me at the Bristol, at seven 
o’clock.” 

“Thanks. Very well. Good evening, Mr. Winches- 
ter.” Mark extended his hand to Madeline. 

“I shall be happy to have you call again, Mr, 
Dascom.” 

His' blue eyes expanded an instant. A sense of 
chivalrous protection made him long to do something 
to help a lady so strangely placed. “I will,” he said, 
in a low tone. 

Dr. Amiens took Mark’s vacant chair, pretending 
to shiver as he sat down. 

“This is such execrable weather. All the foreigners 
have colds, and all the Parisians have the — the blues. 
Fog and chilliness and mud and a shower every ten 
minutes; that is what Paris is now. I wish I were 
one of the fortunate ones who can go South.” 

“What do you think of the winter climate of Nice? ” 
asked Henry, 

“None better,” said the doctor, promptly. “It is 
equable, free from damp winds, and much dryer than 
that of ordinary sea-side sanitarinmSr I think highly 
gf Nice, most assuredly.” 


AFTERWARD. 


145 


“Our American medical journals speak favorably 
of it. I have never been there. My wife expresses a 
desire to go there. You don’t think the climate too 
exhilarating for people suffering from nervous dis- 
orders? My wife is very delicate.” ' 

“Judging from her appearance, I think she might 
go to Nice. Have you ever had severe .fever, 
Madame? ” 

“No.” 

“Any pulmonary trouble? ” 

“ On the contrary. My lungs and throat are per- 
fectly sound.” 

“You can take her to Nice.” The physician bowed 
his head to Henry. “May I ask, sir, if you are a 
doctor also?” 

“lam.” 

“Ah ! Do you have a specialty also? ” 

“Skin diseases,” promptly replied Henry. “If you 
will excuse me. Doctor, we will not talk on medicine 
more than is absolutely necessary, as my wife has 
never been able to overcome an aversion to the sub- 
ject. And just now, with her nerves in their present 
state, — ” his expression conveyed the need of great 
caution. 

“Of course, of course! ” said Dr. Amiens. 

“Now, Madame, a few more questions, and I shall 
be through. Mr. Winchester, will you kindly give 

me a glass of wine first, though.” 

10 


146 


AFTERWARD. 


Henry rose to comply. There was a barely per- 
ceptible arrangement of hjs person, as be started to 
cross the room. While he walked quickly, he shuf- 
fled his feet, rather than raised them in the natural 
way. He brought the glass of wine, but, as he 
handed it to Dr. Amiens, his grasp suddenly relaxed? 
and the tumbler fell from his hand. 

“I might have helped myself,” and the doctor 
bustled to the carafe. Returning, he asked Madeline 
a half dozen general questions, and then, rising with 
precipitation, wrote a prescription, and, sajdng that 
he had sta^^ed too long, and that he would call again 
in the morning, he left. 

Henry conducted him to the door, waited till he 
had passed down the corridor, closed the door, 
locked it, 'and, walking back, confronted his wife, 
who rose instinctively to the encounter. 

“What do you mean? ” he said, extending his closed 
fist. “Are you so vain and weak that you will en- 
courage a thief like that Mr. Dascom to call again? 
I heard you invite him. Why, he is liable to arrest 
at any moment. He is seeking some credulous 
American for swindling purposes. You vdll force 
me to leave Paris immediately, if you conduct your- 
self in this way. This Dr. Amiens! Did you send 
for him for me? Let me tell you that I am well,— and 
that I will not be dictated to, — and — and — ” 


AFTERWARD. 


147 


A deeper and deeper flush rose to his face. As the 
words dropped stammering!}" from his lips, he stag- 
gered, and then fell in a paralyzed, confused heap into 
an arm chair. 

Dearest, you arc not well.” Madeline knelt be- 
side him. 

‘'I am well. I nev — never was better. I’m co — Id, 
that — is — all.” 

“So you are. I’ll give you something to warm 
you.” She administered a stimulant. 

Presently his head, already drawn to one side 
began to drop more and more. He fell asleep. Still 
kneeling beside him, she chafed his hands, to which a 
feeble vitality slowly returned. He woke an hour 
later. She helped him to bed, where a lethargic 
slumber suspended his hallucinations and gave her a 
respite in which to think. 

The next morning he was too feeble to rise, but his 
thoughts were less confused. He was perfectly amen- 
able. While he was in j;his condition, Dr. Amiens 
called. 

“There is nothing to be done, Madame,” said the 
doctor, in conclusion. “Give him all the tonics he 
can take. He may never have another day like yes- 
terday; still, he is liable to aberrations. If you are 
able to stand the strain, do not allow him out of 
your sight. He cannot live much longer. Either his 
physical or mental powers will suddenly collapse. 


148 


AFTERWARD. 


This physical improvement that you have noticed 
has been only temporary. In any event, I do not 
think he can outlive the winter. Take him away 
from Paris immediately. Nice is as good a place as 
any — perhaps the best. 


CHAPTER XL 


NICE. 

Two days later they went to Nice. 

A gibbous moon hung like a deep golden bowl over 
the Tuilleries gardens as they left the hotel. To the 
east rose the rectangular pile of the palace. Over the 
smooth pavement coupes rolled almost noiselessly. 
Madeline was in the heart of the gayest city in the 
, world. Was there a sadder woman in the world? 

Before their departure Dr. Amiens had called once 
more. 

After seeing his patient, and after a .short consulta- 
tion with Madeline, he still lingered, as if something 
were on his mind. He bade her good-evening, how- 
ever, but, on reaching the door, turned, hat in hand, 
and, with spasmodic abruptness, said: 

“Mees Winchester, I would like to say one word to 
you.” 

“Certainly, Dr. Amiens.” She came slightly for- 
ward. 


143 


180 


AF'tERWARD. 


The doctor glanced at the tall, frail figure, the pale, 
calm face whose life seemed to center in the lambent 
glow of the hazel eyes. 

“ Mees Winchester, m}^ freend, Mr. Dascom, have 
told me that he know-all about your husband. He 
say that himself found him, in the Place Yendome, 
seek, distrait, and that it was himself which drove 
with him, stay with him all day and bring him home. 
And he say that the clerk — Dr. Amiens 

pointed through the floor — “ask him to come to see 
you, for you ver^^ much alone, and your husband do 
strange things, secretement — write wild letters to 
peoples, and dat you ought to have a freend in dese 
strange climes. He tink, Mr. Dascom, dat eef he call 
on your husband, he meet you, and your husband 
recognize him, and den he be in course to be of assist- 
ance. But you know how it is,’’ and Dr. Amiens 
shrugged his shoulders. 

“Do you mean to say, Dr. Amiens,” said Madeline, 
growing a trifle paler, “that Mr. Dascom knew my 
husband in New York? ” 

“He know every ting.” What would be the best 
English, thought the doctor; for in his anxiety he en- 
deavored to have his say in imperfect English. “He 
know his fortune and his meesfortune. He say, Mees 
Winchester, dat eef, at any time, he can be of assist- 
ance, he be most happy. He expect to be in Nice later- 
Permittcz-moi to say, Mees Winchester, dat I know 


AFTERWARD. 


151 


Mr. Dascom dis man3'’ year, and he be a gentleman, a 
man of de strictest honor. He will be a proper per- 
son, quite, for you to know.” 

“Thank you. Dr. Amiens,” and she extended her 
hand. “Say to Mr. Dascom that I thank him, also, 
most warmly, for any attention he has shown to Mr. 
Winchester.” 

The doctor waited a second, but she had no addi- 
tional message. 

A couple of hours later they were seated in their 
compartment of a wagon-lit, gliding out of the vast 
arched station of the Lyons and Marseilles rail- 
road. 

Now that they had started, Madeline connected 
this night with that other, when they traveled from 
Dover to Paris. Then the present need was seen as 
through a glass, darkly. Now, although it was very 
real and terrible, she felt stronger to meet it, as being 
inevitable. Psychologically, as well as religiously, 
there is truth in the scripture, “As thy day, so shall 
thy strength be.” 

The night wore away in fitfifl slumber and dreams 
strange as retrospective life. The morning dawned, 
balmy and clear. 

When Madeline had arranged the invalid, it was 
ten o’clock. They had left Marseilles. They had 
begun to catch glimpses of the Mediterranean. 


152 


afterward. 


All at once, from a long, rolling stretch of country, 
slightly wooded, and exhibiting the high cultivation 
of Southern France, they passed to the verge of cliffs, 
against which the surf and sea-weed beat in a mad 
frolic of movement. Above the blue water was the 
blue sky. Far out reached the rich purple and red 
streaks which make the Mediterranean so beautiful 
along its shores. Dotting the valleys which inter- 
vened, when they went further inland, were infinitesi- 
mal homes, with their outhouses and miniature 
courts, suggesting “a nature tamed and grown 
domestic, like a barn-door fowl.” 

By-and-by, they came into the olive groves. Under 
their gray shadows were bundles of fagots neatly 
piled for winter use. Foot-paths traversed them in 
every direction, converging, separating, and disap- 
pearing. There were traces everywhere of a dense 
population and the most careful cultivation. 

Ifithad not been for the frequent wide outlooks 
over the sea, and the corresponding depths of the sky, 
Afadeline would have had a restncted feeling. A 
vague longing stirred her for the measureless forests 
of her native land, for the sight of a road unfenccd, 
miles of country still unused, a luxuriant tangle of 
underbrush, and flowers clustering around the feet of 
primeval oaks and chestnuts. Nature here was like a 
highly-developed society, as if it had been forced and 
pruned until all distinguishing features of climate or 


APTB&WAAO. 


158 


distance were lost. She thanked God for the unre- 
claimed sea, the inaccessible and unmelted snows of 
lofty mountains, and those barren wastes of moss 
and rock, the perpetual possession of goats and birds 
and insects. Do not spiritual helps come to us in the 
breath of the unchained winds, unknown woodland 
odors, and the one wild, sustained note of some bird 
crossing our vision for a second and then disappear- 
ing into the unseen, like some pure soul that yester- 
day'was with us and to-day is not? When we are 
attuned to all these minor and humbler melodies we 
are conscious of kinship not measured by the relations 
of time. Madeline had something of this exalted 
feeling as they traveled on, notwithstanding the high 
cultivation everywhere visible. The flowers in the 
gardens of the watering places through which they 
glide 1, each orange tree, yellow now with its golden 
fruit, the fig trees spreading out their many-fingered 
leaves to the soft air, said something about a 
beneficent, watchful power, as pervasive as the 
atmosphere, as helpful as the gentle rains. 

At last! The journey was at an end. Tired and 
rested both, they left the train. 

They drove toward the sea along a wide, shady 
street bordered with eucalyptus trees. They crossed 
the stony bed of the Paillon, its shallow, muddy flow 
giving no hint of the swollen current that sometimes 
dashed through its walled bed. They passed bright 


164 


AFTERWARD. 


stores, the windows gaily decked with the mosaics 
and corals of the South. Then they came out on the 
Boulevard des Anglais by the public garden, in whose 
shady depths a band was playing. On either hand 
rose tall date-palms; cactuses bordered the walks. 
The gardens were full of pepper trees and other 
tropical growths. Before them was the Bay des 
Anges, sheltered on the west by the promontory of 
Antibes and the lies de Lerins, on the east by Castle 
Hill, whose bold, white-faced bluff towered a har- 
monious part of the limestone houses of the town 
below. 

They found a hotel built in the Italian style, its 
bright pink walls and green blinds in vivid contrast 
with the intense blue of the Mediterranean washing 
lip a few rods distant on the sandy, shelving beach 
bordering an extensive promenade. 

Their rooms opened by long windows on a marble 
terrace, sufficiently high to lift them above the passers- 
by. Cactuses and ferns and roses in urns were placed 
at intervals along the wide coping of the baluster. 
An awning covered its intire width, so that they 
could have both out-door life and privacy. 

Henry went out on the terrace and gazed silently 
over the scene for a few minutes. Far away on the 
outermost He de Lerins, the light-house was already 
shining. Over the sea, against the horizon, the palest 
pink clouds stretched in almost transparent bands. 


AFTERWARD. 


156 


The water was as blue and as calm as a lake in mid- 
summer. The soft, damp air was heavy with the per- 
fume of roses and violets. A few stars glimmered 
faintly. 

Madeline watched him from the shadow of their 
parlor and uttered a faint sigh of relief as she saw the 
influence of the beautiful picture soothing away the 
sharpness and irritability which were becoming his 
habitual expression. She moved about, softly, ar- 
ranging the sofa and the easy chairs where the\’ com- 
manded the view and air. “0, if they only could stay 
— till the end.” 

It rained the next day. A steady downpour beat 
the sanded walks into a hard yellow floor. It gave 
new vividness to the flowers. The soft gray pall over 
the sky, the calm and leaden sea, the .damp and 
sleepy air, the perfume Irom myriad flowers, the 
motionless, rough-barked palms, the thick leaves of 
the cactuses, the neutral whiteness of the houses, the 
stillness, and the repose which comes from new and 
agreeable surroundings, all conduced to the peace 
which appeared to have settled upon Henry. 

He lay, half reclining on a sofa, books piled around 
him, for, no matter what his condition, he had thus 
far exhibited a mania for all kinds of literature. He 
had read very little, however, this first day in Nice. 
His gaze was fixed most of the time on the smooth 
water, where it lost itself in the curtain of rain. 


156 


AFTERWARD. 


Madeline was busy sewing a lace border on some 
handkerchiefs. She sewed a great deal when sitting 
thus beside her husband. Her thoughts were so 
much more desultory, and tired her less ; besides, she 
could watch him without appearing to do so. She 
had abandoned asking him about his readings, for, 
though he were occupied in this way all day, he was 
never able to give her a connected account of what 
interested him. • It was harrowing to watch this 
slow wreck of a once versatile mind. Many a night 
she prayed for his release. And yet, the more his 
faculties became impaired, the more he clung with 
terrible tenacity to life. 

The day had nearly passed, and still she sewed, 
and he read or thought. 

Late in t^e afternoon the clouds broke, changing 
to great purple scrolls that settled down in the north 
and west, throwing the promontory and islands 
into strong relief. A little later the edges of the 
clouds flamed with crimson, and a deep blueness 
pervaded the lofty depths of the sky and the now far- 
reaching sea. A wind sprang up, cresting the waves 
with flakes of foam. 

»She laid aside her sewing and knelt beside his 
couch. 

He put out his hand ; she took it between her own. 

“It is wonderfully beautiful, is it not ? ** 

He nodded solemnly. 


AFTERWARD. 


157 


After a little he turned to his wife. “Madeline, 
do you love me? “ 

“I do, Henry,” she said softly and earnestly. 
“Dearest, your love has been like the grace of God 
tome. You are astonished? I know what is the 
matter with me, Madeline. Just now, while my 
mind is clear, and my memory goes back over — over 
all the years that you have stood by my side, for 
better, for worse, I want to talk with you. I have 
been able to think clearly this entire afternoon. 
While I can, m3' darling, let me tell you that if 3’'ou 
had forsaken me, I could never have softened to the 
belief that God is love. Now I know it. Over and 
over I said to myself, during those six years in 
prison, if a mere woman can be so strong and so 
earnest and so holy, what must God be? 0 , my wife, 
it is through you, and you alone, that I dared reach 
up to Him far enough to pray. It may seem a little 
thing to save one soul, a soul that took all the joy 
out of your life, but, dear, you did a Christ-like deed, 
and 1 link your devotion to my need with that last 
pra3'et of our Lord, ‘Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do.^” 

“Do not tax yourself further, dear. What ^'ou 
have said is an unspeakable consolation. And — you 
are not afraid to die, are you, Henry? ” 

He cast a look of melancholy sympathy at her be- 
fore replying, “Not when my mind is clear. How 


158 


AFTERWARD. 


gladly would 1 go now — from this couch — with my 
hand in yours — but, Madeline, when that cloudi- 
ness settles upon my faculties, I am filled with 
passions and fancies that aggravate my condition 
terribly. Then the very thought of death is incon- 
ceivably horrible. O, m^^ wife, pray, pray that I 
may go out of this life during one of these brief 
intervals of reason. Pray that I may go soon.” 

“Yes, Henry.”. She placed her soft hand upon her 
eyes. “Try to go to sleep now. Don’t use all the 
strength \^ou have. Shall I sing?” 

“Yes; sing ‘Jesus, Lover of my Soul.’” 

The wind had died away. The purple clouds had 
sunk below the horizon. The white caps still danced 
over the wide bay. Sprinkling the vault of the sky 
were innumerable stars. On the promenade resounded 
the patter of feet and the hum of voices. All Nice 
had thronged out of doors to enjoy the sunset and 
the clear evening. Beside her husband’s couch, her 
gentle hand stroking his thin locks, sat Madeline, 
her tremulous voice bearing on the still air the words 
of that immortal hymn. 

As the melody floated upward, the blinds of a 
window just over their awning were thrown open. 
A man leaned against the sash, his ear bent to catch 
every word. As the words of the last stanza, full 
and clear, and as if charged with a triumphiant trust, 
rang out, 


AFTERWARD. 


159 


“Plenteous grace with Thee is found, 

Grace to cover all my sin.” 

he dashed the tears from his eyes and moved away. 

The man was Mark Dascom. 

He had reached Nice that afternoon, and driving 
straight to the Hotel des Anglais, as he had been 
there repeatedly, he took a room before it occurred to 
him to look at the register. 

When he found that the Winchesters had selected 
this hotel out of the many in the watering-place, he 
thought it a providence. Something about this 
lonel}" woman interested him profoundly. He was a 
man of deeds rather than theories, and, as his deeds 
had always been straightforward and honest, it did 
not occur to him to analyze his feelings. All he knew 
was that here was a beautiful woman with a face no 
less indicative of purity and suffering and sweetness 
than that of the Madonna at whom she had gazed 
with such imploring pathos, and that he meant to 
help her if he could. 

Day succeeded day. The willful impulses and in- 
cipient violence that had marked the latter part of 
their stay in Paris, passed entirely away. But the 
quiet period of reasonable conversation that thehus" 
band and wife had had together during that sunset 
hour, was like the fading light of an Arctic day. An 
apathetic dullness and melancholy succeeded, which 
continued with little intermission. 


160 


AFTERWARD. 


Every morning Madeline walked with him on the 
esplanade. He attracted little attention among so 
many invalids. Strange contrasts, these, one sees in 
the haunts of fashion. At certain hours, they seemed 
like the out-door hospitals of the rich. 

But Henry’s step grew slower and more faltering, 
his feet seemed weighted with lead. Saddest of all, 
his expression became more and more vacant and 
senile. 

December came. The flowers bloomed more pro- 
fusely, the sky became bluer, the life grew gayer, as 
the crowds of pleasure-seekers and invalids in- 
creased. 

It was during one of these brilliant mornings that 
she met Mark for the first time in Nice. He asked 
permission to join her. 

They walked slowly on, stopping occasionally to 
rest on one of the many benches placed under the 
shade trees. 

It was while they were sitting down, Madeline be- 
tween her husband and Mark, that the latter asked 
her if she proposed remaining in Nice all winter. 

“I have no plans,” she answered, a little sadly. 
‘‘So long as Mr. Winchester finds Nice beneficial, we 
shall stay. Are j^ou here, also, for your health, Mr. 
Dascom? ” 

He smiled, greatly amused, and involuntarily 
straightened his shoulders. There was a laughing 


AFTERWARD. 


161 


Sparkle in his clear, full blue eye, such an apparent 
perfection of health in his sanguine complexion, and 
such robust strength in his voice as he said emphatic- 
ally, “I am not here for my health,” that she was 
surprised into a laugh. 

Mark looked at her in amazement, to find that she 
had a laugh so near the surface. His conception of 
her somewhat changed. He had not analyzed her so 
far as to think she could not laugh, but, if the truth 
be told, he had placed her in his conception where she 
had placed Murillo’s Madonna in hers. He did not 
esteem her less; he felt more at home with her. 

“It would be hard to ttll you precisely why I am in 
Nice,” he added, still looking at her studiously. 

He had thought all women pitched to a one-chorded 
melody. They were ga}^ or they were not gay. They 
were frivolous, or they were serious. That they were 
like David’s harp of many strings was an impossible 
contradiction to his experience, which, however, was 
as limited as it is possible for that of a man of forty 
to be. He knew men. Until a year ago he had never 
had time to seek or enjoy the society of women, and, 
now that he did have time, he made very slow 
progress, and differentiated them very much as a boy 
does. Those he liked, he liked. Those he disliked, he 
hated and let alone. The result was that he was 
acquainted with very few, and approached them with 

a certain virile naivete. 

11 ^ 


162 


AFTERWARD. 


It is only male authors who analyze women effemi- 
nately, who ascribe a hundred shades of premedita- 
tion to the most trivial act, who outrival Milton’s 
Satan in their conception of a thoroughly wicked 
woman, or invest with lymphatic life one of Madame 
Tussaud’s wax images when they wish to create an 
amiable woman. Their logic runs thus : 

All women are either all amiable or all bad. 

Ethel Harkness is not an all bad woman. 

Ethel Harkness is therefore an all amiable w^oman. 

Final deduction: Ethel is a nonentit3^ 

A man out of a book thinks of a woman, believes in 
a woman, according to the way she looks or the way 
she acts, or both. From Virgil down, “she walks a 
goddess,” is the first, grand, general proposition 
under which everything else is included. 

“You have not told me what you find to interest 
you in Nice,” said Madeline, feeling no curiosity, but 
wishing to break the silence, as Mark ceased stud ving 
her to gaze at the sea. He might have been Neptune 
himself, he looked so calm and so unconsciously 
majestic. 

“I will try to tell you. I have business in Paris and 
Russia, which will keep me on this side the Atlantic 
for a year or more. It does not occupy me constantly, 
and in my intervals of leisure I amuse m3^self by see- 
ing the world — the world that congregates in such 
places as this. I am tr^dng to understand it and 


AFTERWARD. 


163 


enjoy it. I have been told repeatedl}^ that it is the 
proper thing to do. I haven’t succeeded very well 
yet,” said Mark nonchalantly. 

‘‘It would be a very serious thing to fail,” said 
Madeline. 

They looked full into each other’s eyes, and Mark 
laughed a hearty, irresistible peal. 

‘‘It is something that most men and women learn 
easily, and then spend a lifetime in forgetting,” con- 
tinued Madeline. 

“That sounds bitter.” 

‘‘The bitterness has all gone out of it for me, but 
the philosophy remains. Let me assure you,” she 
added, rising, ‘‘that you must have a native inapti- 
tude, or you would have learned the lesson long ago. 
Good-morning.” Although she smiled very kindly, 
he knew that his further escort was not desired. 

He passed . out of her mind with the occasion. 
There was a healthy unconsciousness about him, a 
large boyishness without, however, any lack of dig- 
nity, a kind of unruffled calmness which was by no 
means stagnation, that she enjoyed and respected. 
She felt these qualities more, in this random talk by 
the sea than she had in Paris, when a new anxiety 
was pressing on her. So true it is that, no matter 
how heavy the burden, the moment of tremendous 
pressure is when it is first fitted to the back. It is 
when a heavy sea first strikes a vessel, that it creaks 


164 


AFTERWARD. 


and quivers from stem to stern. When it sinks, it 
goes down with little sound, and no apparent resist- 
•ance. 

Madeline walked with Henry until the sun drove 
tkem indoors. Then she wrote a long letter to 
Rebeeea. She had made this link wdth the past of 
her own aecord, and, after it was done, took great 
comfort in the correspondence. 

The next day was the twenty-fourth. In the hotel, 
every one had a consciousness of Christmas. The 
hilarity of the children was contagious. The sun 
shone in golden. Southern splendor. The tall palms 
spread out their tops like hands inviting a blessing. 
The very air, laden with perfume, gave a new con- 
ception to our Northern born Madeline of sweetness 
and grace and good news in the words, “Unto you a 
child is born. Unto you a son is given.” Whatcould 
she do to make the season suggestive to Henry? 
They had not driven of late. The doctor had advised 
walking. But Henry seemed so strong this sweet, 
clear day, that surely nothing could be better than a 
drive on the Corniche road. 

At four o’clock, a little before the stream of eques- 
trians and carriages was at its height, they started, a 
dull eagerness in Henry’s eyes, a solicitude and 
tenderness in Madeline’s face and manner, manifest- 
ing itself in a last tucking of the robe, an adjustment 
of heck handkerchief and coat that absorbed her as 


AFTERWARD, 


i65 

completely as though they were, in a wilderness. 
There was something startling in the conjunction of 
so much vital beauty with such decrepitude. 

Mark saw them start. A few minutes later he, too, 
was on the road. It did not occur to him that he 
was in a Parsifal mood, or as much of a knight- 
errant as Orlando Furioso, and with this difference, 
that the possibility of romance in the relation he was 
weaving toward Madeline did not even shadow his 
consciousness. Strong business claims and years of 
business honor sometimes indicate conserving moral 
qualities, as salt does the purity of the sea. ' Just as 
great depths occasionally underlie the business 
man^s exterior as overlie the salt beds in mid- 
ocean. 

They drove past the public gardens, then through 
the old part of Nice, and gradually ascended Castle 
Hill, coming out on a plateau overlooking the bay, 
where either side of the superb roadway is lined with 
the villas of winter residents. Flowers hung over the 
high white walls shutting in these tropical homes. 
Now and then a row of terraces, vari-colored with 
flowers and grass, peeped above their limestone 
boundaries or gleamed through the bars of a broad 
iron gate. The chief pleasure, though, until the 
villas were passed, was in bowling over the smooth 
road and in inhaling the salt air. 


166 


AFTERWARD. 


All at once, by a broad turn, they left the homes 
behind them, and while, on their right, the barren 
hill-sides towered, on their left, with nothing to 
break the view, reached the vavSt expanse of sea and 
sky. The horses sped onward, the wheels rolling 
over the fine road with the smoothness of those of a 
railway carriage. No vehicles were in sight. Not 
even the echo from the hoof of some equestrian^s 
horse reached their ears. There was not a cloud in 
the sky. No wind stirred. 

Henry took Madeline’s hand. He often did it these 
days. 

“Does it not all breathe peace on earth, good-will 
to men, dear? ” she whispered. 

“Can you say that with all your heart, 
Madeline? ” 

“Yes,” she said softly but firmly, looking into his 
faded eyes with sweet intensity of expression, “I 
can.” 

“Does the good-will you have shown to me, 
Maddie, come from your very heart of hearts? ” 

“It does, Henry,” and she gently pressed his hand. 
Then she added with a sincerity that must have been 
convincing to the most unbelieving, “Why not, 
dear?” 

They were on the heights above Villa Franca. Far 
below them lay the gray little town circling round 
its deep cove in which two men-of-war rode at 


AFTERWARD. 


167 


anclior. Above it, straggling along the side of the 
hills were the olives, their silver-lined leaves soft 
against the pale blueness of the sky. Far ahead of 
them gleamed the white curves of the Comiche. 
They halted a few minutes, looking over the view in 
silence. 

“Shall we go further, Henry? 

“I think not. I feel tired. 

As they turned, a horseman passed them, 
Madeline recognized the frank manliness of his bear- 
ing. He rode well and appeared to better advantage 
than she had yet seen him. The serene equability 
and serenity of the man was like a tonic to her. He 
bowed, and presently, while they were both watch- 
ing him, he disappeared down the hill leading to 
Villa Franca. 

“Who is that, Madeline? ” 

“A Mr. Dascom.^^ 

“ 0, yes, I recollect. A fine looking man.^^ 

“Is he not? If he were on a sea-horse, one might 
take him for Neptune. He makes me think of one of 
Homer’s Greeks.” 

“That blonde type needs to be large to look strong. 
It is the persistent type, whether in the Greek, the 
Celt, the German, or the Anglo-Saxon. Tell the 
driver to go faster, dear. I feel singularly tired.” 

“Brace yourself a little against me. There!” 
Madeline put her arm behind him, as he closed his 


168 


AFTERWARD, 


eyes. He sank toward her slightly, but otherwise 
appeared as usual. 

‘‘My dearest,’' she said a few minutes later, as 
they came under the shadows of the high walls in- 
closing the villas, “do you feel very faint ? 

“Not — very ! ” 

Soon they began to descend the Castle Hill. 
Then they came down to the sea level. She felt the 
weight growing heavier against her. “We are al- 
most home, Henry.” 

. No answer. 

“Faster, driver,” she cried. 

The man touched the horses and they flew along 
the smooth road. 

Henry had turned slightly in his seat, as he sank 
lower and lower. She could not see his face. 

At last they crossed the Paillon, came out beside 
the Gardens where a band was playing, then along 
the esplanade thronged now with people, then upon 
the yellow sand covering the drive in front of their 
Italian hotel. 

The clerk came down the steps to meet them 
just as Mark rode up. 

“Please help my husband very carefully,” whis- 
pered Madeline, a little paler than usual. “He is 
faint.” 

The clerk looked in Henry’s face, then wonderingly 
at Madeline, then turned and beckoned silently to 


AFTERWARD. 


i69 


Mr. Dascom. “Madame,” he said, “if you will get 
out on your side, I will hold Mr. Winchester.” 

Madeline did so, and in the second while she was 
descending, the clerk whispered to Mark, 

“He is dead I” 



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CHAPTER T. 


r\ 

A HEIDELBERG EPISODE. 

Will the reader transport himself with me to 
Heidelberg, that gray old university town in the 
valley of the Neckar at the point where it widens out 
into one of those extensive German plains cultivated 
with the care given to an American kitchen garden. 
As it is an anniversary year for the university, the 
city is filled with strangers and bright with the gay- 
est life of which it is capable. 

The red sand-stone walls of the old castle tower in 
majestic beauty from the side of the commanding hill 
they crown, while high above them,. like a natural 
fortress, rise steeper hills, threaded with paths 
through delectably shady solitudes. The long ave- 
nue, leading from the railway station, flanked on 
either side by hotels or pensions, its space set off on 
the right by a broad, linden-shaded walk, widening 
here and there into a garden or booth, conducts one 
straight to the castle, that Mecca of youthful lovers, 
and near enough to the university buildings to make 
it a popular resort. 

17a 


174 


AFTERWARD. 


This avenue leads the pedestrian past an ancient 
Lutheran church sunk a few feet below the level, and 
surrounded by an inclosure filled with grass and 
flowers and shrubbery- A little further ©n a fine 
carriage drive ascends the hill to the castle, but 
lovers, travelers and students delight in a steep 
ascent merging higher up into the drive, and once the 
only approach, and picturesque enough still to trans- 
port the foreigner to the sixteenth century. 

This lane or alley is bordered on either side by 
houses of the humblest description. Its cobble stones 
are rough or sunken, and creep up to the very door- 
ways. Shoemakers, laundresses, small boarding- 
house keepers, and laborers from the surrounding 
farms, or those connected with the extensive castle 
repairs, are the chief occupants of these homes. Such 
homes in Germany are invariably well filled with 
daughters, and in a town where hundreds of youths 
from all Christendom flock to learn to study, fight 
and love, a street like the one I have described 
teems with romances. 

It is four o’clock of a July afternoon, the sky is 
spotted ^ith round, cottony white clouds sailing to- 
gether and then dispersing, but revealing against 
their softness, depths of clearest blue. A light breeze 
stirs the leaves on the wooded hillside. The streets 
are filled with professors whose stout, florid wives 
lean lovingly on their arms, submission and docility 


AFTERW.UtD. 


175 


clothing their patient features and completing the 
story which the thundering, dictatorial voice and 
authoritative manner of their lords and masters 
begin. As far as the eye can reach, students past 
and present make the streets gay with their vari- 
colored caps. Here a couple walk arm-in-arm, there 
a solitary, white-faced 3'outh paces with funereal 
tread, with an expression fit for the catacombs, and 
giving the military' salute to a passing acquaintance. 
Yonder is a group hand-in-hand, singing a hilarious 
song; presently they separate, going down one and 
another of the narrow crooked streets on the left. 
Scarred faces are everywhere. Some of the cuts 
white but deep, although years have passed, others 
freshly made and dearer in their pain and ugliness 
to their possessors than a degree. It is too early in 
the afternoon for the exodus to the castle grounds to 
begin, but not too early for one tall figure to have 
already commenced the ascent of the steep allev- 
The young man hastened forward, his eyes fixed 
upon the latticed window of a little gable hanging 
far over the way. The window was closed and faced 
him with a sphinx-like stare. Here and there along 
the alley, small children at play were seated on the 
cobble stones; others sat still, in profound and happy 
contemplation, as they munched a piece of black 
bread or gnawed an onion. Dogs of all sizes and 
colors wandered about with canine familiarity, niak- 


176 


AFTERWARD. 


ing discoveries of perfumes hidden away in dark 
corners and lifting their heads to heaven as some 
new odor greeted them, with the air of a university 
savant. Dogs and children and students and the 
adult occupants were as much at ease among these 
complex odors as a gardener is in the sweetness of 
his conservatory. Even the young man whom I have 
mentioned, had he attempted a description of his sur- 
roundings, would doubtless have mentioned the 
ethereal blueness of the sky, the picturesqueness of 
that little windo .v, and revealed an inward elysium 
of passion that eliminated whatever was undesirable, 
filthy and prosaic. 

The negation of the undesirable, filthy and prosaic 
does not, however, blot them out of existence. If 
the fact had amounted to the effort, earth would 
long ago have been heaven. What a strange con- 
junction that is, though, when two natures touch 
each other with magnetic attraction, and the experi- 
ence to one is but an episode, and to the other it is 
life ! Is it fickleness or indifference that much learn- 
ing, travel, and society induce? Is it merely a divine 
discontent that seeks and changes and thirsts, be- 
cause from so much in the past it argues still more 
and more in the future? Is experience of whatever 
kind of such essential value, that any conceivable 
parthly suffering is to be counted as nothing? 


AFTERWARD. 


177 


Some of the students at Heidelberg asked them- 
selves such questions and gave themselves a large 
freedom through their skill in moral dialectics. If 
they enjoyed and women suffered, oftener than not 
rude peasant women, did not such women, after all, 
receive a certain compensation? But, was it enough 
to strike a harmony across all the chords of their 
being, like some vagrant wind, and then leave these 
simple souls to rust out in unloved disgrace? 

Carroll Saxby did not, however, fret his mind with 
such questionings as he climbed that hill. What a 
light broke across his face, as the lattice all at once 
swung open, and a plump hand shook a gay-colored 
handkerchief in the air an instant, and then disap- 
peared. A few more long strides, and he was at the 
door opening on the street. 

No fear of disturbance. No other occupant in that 
simple room all the day long than the little Swiss 
lace-maker who had drifted from Vitznau to Heidel- 
berg with her father, who was working during the 
summer on the castle repairs. 

She wore her Swiss costume as a city lady does her 
jewels. Her very simplicity and vivacity made love- 
making a thing contagious in itself. So Carroll 
Saxby had discovered. Every time he came was to 
be the last, but every time he left his entanglement 

was deeper. 

12 


178 


AFTERWARD. 


All through his student years he had kept free from 
a liaison, and now, on the eve of taking his degree, 
he did not intend to soil his honor or mar his career. 
He wished from the very bottom of his heart that he 
had never seen Rosalia. But he had! His life, like 
most others, was being shaped by forces which he had 
not taken into account. 

He opened the door. There stood Rosalia in the 
very middle of the sanded floor. Her chestnut hair 
was pierced by a long, silver spike. Her dainty feet 
and ankles looked still smaller in their black stock- 
ings and slippers. Her black skirt fell in full, straight 
folds to just abovethe pretty ankles. Above her black 
bodice rose the high white waist, and the sleeves, 
with their wing-like starched puffs reaching to the 
elbow, left her round arms and small hands exposed. 

Rosalia^s face was undeniably rustic in its trans- 
parency and sweetness. It had the strength and 
healthfulness of the mountain phlox. But over it 
played as many lights and shadows in a minute, as 
chase one another, on a sunny day, across a bit of 
meadow high up on the Alps. She was like an April 
day in mood, and like August in certain staying 
powers of warmth. 

She gave a bright, rippling little laugh, as Carroll 
closed the door. The movement through her form 
shook the silver chains depending from her bodice in 
i itrxate loops. 


AFTERWARD. 


179 


He gazed at her a second in undisguised pleasure, 
then, leaning against the door, held out his hand, 
and said, “ Come here! 

She looked askance, twirled her chains, colored, 
laughed, and stood still. 

“Come ! ’’ He leaned forward. 

For answer, she looked down, a subtle, fleeting, 
merry smile peeping in and out from the corners of 
her mouth. Then she looked up, her deep, blue eyes 
brimful of mischief, her plump little hand lifted to her 
cheek, and smiled and gazed at Carroll. 

All at once, with one stride, he sprang forward, 
seized her in his arms, kissed her hair, her brow, her 
mouth, over and over, and Rosalia lay in his arms, 
and smiled and flushed and kissed back, like a 
child. 

By-and-by, when the steady thud of footsteps on 
the cobble stones told them of the stream of people 
ascending to the castle grounds to the open-air con- 
cert, Carroll asked Rosalia to go there with him fqr 
coflee and music. 

He had never asked her to accompany him before, 
and no maid was more gay or thoughtless or got 
ready with more alacrity. She looked still prettier 
in her flat-crowned and narrow-brimmed straw hat 
trimmed with black ribbons. 

Carroll had a passing consciousness of meeting his 
friends, w'hile walking with this bewitching peasant, 


180 


AFTERWARD. 


They faded from his care or his thought, as he took 
her hand and climbed the remainder of the hill. It 
seemed as though all the pleasure of his whole past 
life was as nothing compared with this walk beside 
Rosalia. 

Carroll Saxby, at twenty-three, had perfect theo- 
retical and local historical knowledge of student 
intrigues. They had amused him, half disgusted him, 
but their atmosphere was too pervasive for him to 
have a great personal abhorrence, except on the score 
of ultra fastidiousness. Aware of a vacillating 
temperament, he had simply kept out of tempta- 
tion. 

But this pretty Rosalia in her mourning garb, 
while losing nothing of the picturesqueness of her 
Canton costume, was as dainty and harmonious and 
vital a bit of human mechanism as it was possible to 
conceive. 

An American conscience, refined by enthusiastic 
study of German sentiment in literature, is a curious 
anomaly. In Carroll’s case, the result up to this 
juncture had been moral purity, utterly uninfluenced 
by religious conviction. 

It is of little moment to theorize on the inflamma- 
bility of a nature that has never felt the contact of 
fire. And because some substances ignite at a very 
low degree, it is no proof of the non-combustibility of 
others, The oxy-hydrogen flame produces the most 


AFTERWARD. 


181 


constiming heat. As this flame is caused by the mad 
rushing together of two elements, so two natures, 
under the simplest conditions, and because of an 
overwhelming attraction between those primary 
forces of being as common to the savage as the 
savant, may find themselves inextricably and ruin- 
ously blended, unless subject to a spiritual law still 
stronger. 

When Carroll and Rosalia reached the plateau 
where the castle grounds began, they paused by 
common consent. Below them lay the gray town, 
before them the castle walls, and an ancient ruined 
bastion gradually assuming its original shape under 
the hands of the masons. Further on, winding walks 
and woody vistas invited them. 

He did not let go her hand. He felt the firm, full 
pulse, throbbing in her round wrist, and the touch of 
those flexible fingers clasping his was delicious. It 
was part of the blue sk}^ above. Innumerable 
snatches of passionate song from Heine and Goethe 
swept through his mind. 

Rosalia looked off over the enchanting prospect, 
then at his face, under her curling chestnut lashes, 
and half smiled, while leaning perceptibly nearer. 

He put his arm around her waist, and she yielded a 
second. 

Inside the walls they met other lovers; whole 
families, the German pater familias appearing 


182 


AFTERWARD. 


perhaps at greater advantage out-of-doors with his 
children than anywhereelse. They wandered up what 
had been the main approach, across the moat, look- 
ing down into a deep hollow overgrown with a per- 
fect wilderness of bushes and underbrush, and form- 
ing a somber glen. 

“ It is dark and sad here,’’ said Rosalia. “ Come I ” 
and seizing Carroll’s hand, she made a feint of drag- 
ging him away. 

“ Hark ! ” She clasped her little hands in listening 
delight, half turning her head to catch a strain cf 
music. 

‘‘Come! Come!” and dancing d( wn the statel 
avenue backward, the mottled sunlight glinting over 
her agile figure, and touching the buckles of her low 
shoes, she beckoned him forward. 

He followed, fascinated with the life and movement 
and grace of the black and white robed fairy. He had 
seen her many times before, but never, it seemed to 
him, half so pretty or in such perfect harmony with 
his desire and her environments. It was easy to for- 
get her father and the cottage and the alley, and that 
she was a peasant and he an only son with every • 
worldly expectation. 

He was ambitious and cautious, ordinarily, but, 
as that afternoon lengthened its golden hours, and 
he sat or walked beside this birdlike creature, never 
saying much but never still, and looking and acting 


AFTERWARD. 


183 


like some pastoral Psyche, the present moment be- 
came all. He was no Cupid, however, who could 
bear his stolen prize to some secret place, and lire 
and love, both trusted and unknown. 

The sunshine, and the Castle with its legendary 
witchery and the fine orchestra u*nder the great 
lindens, combined with youth and longing to turn a 
day into a lifetime for Rosalia. 

They wandered on in the twilight shadows, and, 
coming out on a vast terrace commanding the 
Neckar, the city, and the beautiful slopes beyond the 
river, deserted now by all save lovers, they sat down 
and gave promises which the one believed and the 
other made with reckless disregard of truth or con- 
sequences. 

All summer long, Carroll Saxby lingered in Heidel- 
berg. The great throng of students and guests had 
gone hither and thither, but the buzz of returning 
life to the university buildings in the autumn roused 
him definitely to the fact that the time he was to 
have given totravel had slipped away in Rosalia’s 
society and love. He cared for her no less than on 
that fatal July afternoon. A year of special study in 
Berlin, however, demanded the severance of these 
ties ; he certainly could not take this Swiss peasant 
with him. 

Rosalia, with the submission and suppressed 
curiosity so characteristic of the lower classes in 


184 


AFTERWARD. 


Europe, had never disturbed his enjoyment by 
anxious queries about the future. With a new life 
tugging at her strong and passionate Heart, a 
huTigry fear sometimes lurked in her eyes whieh she 
ehased away with a gayer laugh than usual or some 
bit of coquetry delightful in its artlessness, when 
Carroll chided her for a silence which he understood 
only too well. She was learning the art of smiling 
while her heart was weeping. Women of all classes 
sooner or later acquire this accomplishment. 
^‘Rosalia,” said Carroll, one afternoon in October, 
shall you be sad if I go away from 3^ou for a little 
while? 

She gave a smothered little gasp. 
“Awayfromme? From your Rosalia? Yourpoor 
Rosalia ? ” She seized his hand and laid her cheek on 
it, kissing it as she did so. 

That kiss scorched. Many a time in the months that 
followed he lifted that hand with the other, looked 
at the spot touched by the kiss, and felt the warm 
breath of the little Swiss upon it. The very softness 
of the winds recalled the velvet of her cheek, the 
wash of rain against his window the burdened, 
trembling sigh that escaped her as she pleaded, 
‘‘Don’t go away ! 

“I must. My father’s orders are imperative. 
Fathers, you know, must be obeyed. But I will come 
back.” 


AFTERWARD. 


185 


“When?” 

“I cannot tell; but before a great while. Listen, 
Rosalia; how would you like to go to Paris? I could 
reach you more easily there. I will give you enough 
money for the journey and to live on till Christmas. 
In Paris, you can earn more, doubtless, for your 
lace, than here, and — and I can come more easily to 
Paris than to Heidelberg. Wouldn’t you like to go 
to Paris?” 

“Yes. But my poor little father — he cannot go to 
Paris.” 

“He has forsaken you, anyway. Go, and perhaps 
he will become reconciled.” 

She shook her head; then with a little wail, “You 
will not leave me You will come back! ” 

“I will, I will! I promise you.” 

He got up and paced the floor in perplexity. An 
impulse to marry this little woman seized him. Then 
pride, and ambition, and fear of life-long complica- 
tions restrained him. 

He came back to her. 

“Rosalia, darling, I will go to Paris with you. 1 
will find you a home. Look up, my birdling, my 
sweet one, we will go away to-morrow. Trust me 
for the future. I cannot see my way clearly, now, 
but I shall, later. Say that you will trust me, 
Rosalia.” 


186 


AFTERWARD. 


She threw her arms about his neck, and, clinging 
there, wept with peace and love and anticipated 
loneliness. She did not reproach him with the fact 
that she had given all. Women have a curious fash- 
ion, in great extremities, of keeping silence, either 
from self-abnegation, or the uselessness of the ac- 
cusation. 

If Carroll had been less passionate, he would have 
left Rosalia where she was. To transport a woman 
in whose ignorance lay much of her innocence to a 
city where the chances were innumerable that she 
would come in contact with creatures who would 
laugh at her for her trust and urge her to make 
capital out of her shame was a thoughtless, das- 
tardly thing. But with the time for leaving at hand, 
and the expectation of going to Paris for a month in 
the vvinter, Carroll cared for little else but his own 
pleasure, and to quiet Rosalia for the present. 

The next day the latticed cottage was closed. 
What a multitude of impressions surged across 
Rosalia’s vacant, but amiable little brain during 
the first long journey. But, although her mind was 
vacant it contained large spaces to be filled. She 
had great capacity for all manner of sensuous enjo\^- 
ment, and a vigilant eye that saw and recorded 
everything. The Rosalia who, a year ago, for the 
chance of a ride, was willing to be packed with 
greasy Italians and odoriferous Germans into a third- 


AFTERWARD. 


187 


class car blue with smoke was different from the 
Rosalia who, snugly tucked up on the soft gray 
cushions of a first-class car, watched the spinning 
landscape or the handsome face of her lover. 

Daily association for three months with a gentle- 
man had given this peasant a thousand intuitions 
of which before she was only half conscious. 

Rosalia and Carroll were young enough to forget 
the future, substantially, in the present, and, say what 
we will about the short-sightedness of youth, it is a 
lost art growing ever more valuable to the aged. 

“You shall have a suite of small rooms, with the 
dearest kitchen, where you can live by yourself and 
make lace and be as happy as a lark all the day 
long. You must not go out at night alone, Rosalia; 
I would not like that. There will be a hundred sights 
to please you. I am only afraid you will forget me 
before I can come back. Do you think you will for 
get me, little one ? Say never ! Never ! 

“Never!*' She clasped her hands and said the 
word with such tragic fervor and pathos that 
Carroll started. Her sincerity penetrated the very 
core of the delusion of constancy in which he was 
trying to wrap himself while with her. What if he 
never did come back — only, of course, because he 
never could I What then ? Was he not mad to train 
this clinging, if earthly nature, in the deepest vocabu- 
lary of affection? And this he had done day by day, 


188 


AFTERWARD. 


growing deeper and deeper in love himself through 
the responsiveness he awoke. He did love her! And 
the future? “Curse the future!” he said to himself 
in anger, when hot shame stirred his conscience. 
Perhaps he might marry Rosalia. It was not as if 
he had deliberately appropriated her life. It had all 
happened, quite by accident. A fate had overtaken 
them both, and they might have to take the conse- 
quences according to the limitations of their stations 
in life — which meant all the consequences for Rosalia, 
of course, and none for him. 

A tiny suite of rooms was found under the shadow 
of quaint St. Sulpice. Finally, after a week of sight- 
seeing, and pleasure which was greater for the very 
poignancy of the near parting, that last day came, 
that last hour, and, try as she might to repress her 
feelings, Rosalia was in a cold tremble of fear and 
dread and grief that left a streak of purple whiteness 
along the edge of her pretty lips and a stricture 
about her heart that made her eyes large and dry 
and bright, and shook her frame with sudden chills. 

“My darling,” said Carroll, walking from one to 
another of the little rooms with her, while the cab 
which was to take him away stood at the door, “I 
shall be here — and here — and there. Wherever you 
go, I shall be at your side. When you sleep, your 
hand will be in mine, and when you sit down aCour 
little table, I shall be opposite. If you think I am 


AFTERWARD, 


189 


close beside you, it will be almost as if I were. Cheer 
up, precious. See, now it is October. When Christ- 
mas comes — only three months — I shall come back. 
You say nothing, my darling. Can’t you give me 
one little word for bon voyage 

“O, mon ami, mon ami,” said Rosalia, with a 
piteous smile. Three months are a lifetime when we 
love. I have a great fear, and such a pain,” and she 
clasped her hands over her heart. “I was never 
alone before! ” 

“There! There! ” and Carroll took her in his arms. 
She clung to him while he kissed her and strained 
her to his heart. “I swear to you, Rosalia, I shall 
come back at Christmas.” 

Covering her face with kisses, and rushing out of 
the room, he hastened down the stairs and drove to 
the train. 


CHAPTER 11. 


A REVELATION. 

After her husband’s burial, Madeline felt as 
though she had been dropped into a great silence. 
She had expected that when she found herself as she 
was now, she would return to America immedi- 
ately and take up life under the healthful if prosaic 
conditions of women who have never had or appear 
never to have had heart-breaking trouble. But to 
return seemed the last thing possible at present. 

She had no social ambitions. She had no relatives, 
and no friends except Mrs. Saxby. Rebecca surely 
did not need her, and she, why, she had been starved 
so long, that she had forgotten what it meant to 
have her feelings stirred. 

She lingered a few weeks aimlessly in Nice, and 
then, wearily made preparations for a journey 
South. 

It was the day of her departure. 


AFTERWARD. 


191 


Sl^ e leaned against the shutters of her dismantled 
parlor, gazing listlessly and tearlessly upon the ani- 
mated scene immediately below, and then upon the 
sparkling freshness of the blue sea. The unclouded sun 
struck eYer3^thing with dazzling brightness. The 
ocean looked as though it had never been lashed by a 
storm, the moving crowds as though death had 
never decimated their ranks. 

Why could everyone simulate happiness better 
than she? But she — she was neither happy nor un- 
happy. She was like the exhausted, lifeless moon, 
although shedding no reflected light. There was no 
one in the wide world from whom she could even 
borrow radiance. 

Meanwhile, the porter knocked to ask if her trunks 
were ready. She watched them carried out. Then 
she turned, gave one last, fleeting look at those 
silent rooms, the sunlight falling in lonely, mottled 
bands across the carpet, and with a sigh shut the 
door. At the head of the stairs, shecameface to face 
with Mark Dascom. 

They paused, from a mutual impulse. 

He had been so kind to her, during all these heavy, 
lifeless weeks, and somehow this kindness suddenly 
emphasized her coming loneliness. 

She held out her hand. 


192 


AFTERWARD. 


“I am just leaving, Mr. Dascom. I hope you re- 
ceived my note of thanks and my good-bye. Thank 
you once more for all you have done for me.” 

He waved his hand as if he would dispose of her 
thanks in that way, and said, “No, I have not re- 
ceived it yet. I did not know you thought of leaving 
Nice. May I ask where you are going, Mrs. Wir. 
Chester? ” 

“To Rome.” 

“ Shall you remain long ? ” 

“I do not know. Good-bye.” 

He took her hand, and would haye held it, invol- 
untarily, but she withdrew it with a look of reticent 
dignity and sweetness, and, turning away, went 
dowm stairs. 

He stood still and watched her. Should he ever see 
a step and smile like hers again? The black dress 
swept the last stair, a whiff of air caught the black 
veil, which fluttered back an instant. Then she was 
gone. 

Still Mark stood there, alone, the -long corridor 
stretching right and left, the marble staircase staring 
at him with its grimy whiteness. 

He drew his great height up, finally, a pale, high 
light gleaming from his blue eyes, as a pent-up ex- 
clamation escaped him. 

“My God, I love that woman ! ” 


AFTERWARD. 


193 


With this abrupt and naive confession, his desire 
to protect her returned in overwhelming force. He 
could not let her go to Rome alone. He did not stop 
to consider the consequences should his attention 
annoy her. 

He hastened to the office, asked for a time-table, 
and ordered a cab. 

Madeline had gone with the hotel stage, and, as 
that started a half hour beforeeach train, the chances 
were that he would be in time. 

Hastening to his room he commanded his aston- 
ished valet to pack a valise in five minutes, studied 
his time-table meanwhile, and then, ten minutes 
later, leaving directions should he not return, he was 
gone. 

The long, black train was just about to start out 
of the station as Mark rushed on the platform, ticket 
in hand. The first-class cars were ahead, and already 
closed. A solitary guard was in sight, hanging to 
the railing of the last car and about to lock the last 
door. Mark waved to him. The next second he was 
inside, the heavy brass latch was clasped into its 
deep socket, he slipped a fee into the guard’s hand, 
and settled back into his seat as the train moved off 
toward the port of Nice. 

He was in a car iffill of bare-headed and greasy 
Italians, redolent with garlic and stale wine, their 
black eyes fixed upon him with rustic curiosit}^ their 

13 


194. 


AFTERWARD. 


dirty fingers ever and anon creeping to his coat to 
feel its texture. Otherwise they were respectful, and, 
when he condescended to notice a bambino almost as 
nude and quite as beautiful as if it had been the 
original for one of RaphaePs cherubs, the women 
chattered like magpies, and the older children smiled 
with a bland delight which gave him a dolce far 
niente feeling, despite his desire to change his car- 
riage as quickly as possible. 

At Mentone the baggage was examined. Here 
there would be every possible risk of meeting 
Madeline, and that he must avoid if he could, 
although he was prepared to take the consequences 
should he be discovered. So he beckoned to the 
guard again at the first stop, bargained to secure 
the examination of his valivse as the last piece, and 
then inquired whether there were many first-class 
passengers. 

** Cinque^ soleV 

He felt relieved. She could have a compartment 
to herself, at least for the present. It now occurred 
to him that she was evidently traveling without a 
maid, and another care consumed him lest she should 
be alone at night. He hoped there would be some 
other lady to share her coup^ later. 

When the train left Mentone, he had secured a 
vacant compartment immediately behind hers, and 
■^en gave hjmself up to reflection, 


AFTERWARD. 


195 


His object was too clear and justifiable to himself 
for him to question what he was doing for an 
instant. He plainly saw, however, that his course 
would be unexplainable to Mrs. Winchester except 
on one supposition, should they chance to meet. It 
might delay their further acquaintance; it could not 
prevent it. Moreover, it was perfectly apparent that 
there were many journeys after this one was finished, 
that she would have to take alone. No matter! She 
was in deep trouble now, and he would see her safely 
in Rome, before he returned to Paris. 

Time and fate would make opportunities. He had 
waited forty years to love a woman, and he believed 
that the long delay carried its own promise of reci- 
procity. 

On the train sped — under the shadow of the 
silvery olives, through the rounded and sparsely 
wooded foot-hills of the maritime Alps, on toward 

Genoa the Superb,’^ past flashes of the Mediter- 
ranean irridescent with purple and crimson sea- 
weeds, then on beyond the marble city of the new 
world navigators, like a vast, inhabited amphi- 
theater, on through scores of smoky tunnels follow- 
ing one another in quick succession, until the night 
came down, and the southern stars shone out, and 
the surging roar accompanying the rumble , of the 
train was all there was to tell them when they were 
close upon the rocky coast. 


196 


AFTERWARD. 


A man does not reach middle age without having 
many and complex theories of life, to say nothing of 
a host of experiences which he may think forgotten, 
but which, nevertheless, affect his conduct. Such 
theories and experiences especially affect his emo- 
tional nature. A man or woman of forty is not so 
much incapable of overpowering emotions as they 
are cautious of individuals and circumstances calcu- 
lated to awaken deep feeling. They merely withhold 
therr selves from tampering with dangerous condi- 
tions. An affection must be tremendously worth the 
while to a deep nature that has attained middle age. 
Mark Dascom had never gone out, deliberately, as 
many men do, to seek a wife. He did not disapprove 
of such a course. It rather amused him, suggesting, 
a little sharply, a business-like appraisal of values. 
Thoroughly prosaic and common-place in matters 
pertaining strictly to business, he had waited all 
these years for sentiment to direct him, if he ever 
married. He had loved Madeline instantly and 
absolutely. His love was not yet a passion. It was 
rather a great faith — an intellectual conviction of a 
many-sided superiority. 

He had known other unambitious, handsome, de- 
voted w^omen, but they had not stirred a pulse of his 
nature. Rather the contrary; for ambition and 
vanity combined are the key to the power' of some 
highly agreeable and attractive women. If you add 


AtS'TERWARD. 


197 


to ambition and vanity, selfisliness and beauty, 
there is hardly any measure to the power such a 
woman may have over the ordinary masculine 
nature. 

As he sat in the corner of his carriage, summing up 
all of Madeline’s known and possible virtues, he was 
like any ordinary lover. He was unlike the ordinary 
lover in his absolutely blind faith in the future. This 
faith, however, was entirely removed from conceit. 
Some would call it his superstition. Be this as it may, 
it was the impelling force of his present. What a 
light way we have of epitomizing these intangible 
mental processes that govern us mightily for weal or 
woe. 

On the train hurried through the gloom. 

Madeline could not sleep. She could think. 
All her thought was a struggle, though. She be- 
lieved that she had overcome apathy with duty 
during her hermit life in America ; but here she was, 
filled with apathy. She knew enough now, however, 
to resist it. 

She stood up in the car, and, leaning against the 
door, tried to look out. They had left the tunnels 
and the water. A waste campagna stretched out 
dimly in the starlight. They were going fast and 
making fewer stops. Were they on the lowlands be- 
tween the coast and Pisa ? She walked over to the 
other door, and peered out into an olive woods. 


i98 


Ali'TERWARi). 


They passed it presently, and against the sky 
stretched the graceful, shadowy outline of the 
Appenines. 

The change of position rested her. The soft, almost 
misty darkness, was like a brooding, tender shadow 
of oblivion. Would it be thus, ten years hence, with 
her sad past? Would it be softened and veiled 
with the healing darkness of time? 

She pressed her forehead against the cool glass ^nd 
closed her eyes. At that moment there was ajar, a 
tremble through the whole train, a quick forward 
and then backward movement, as if some upheaval 
had taken place. The next minute she was dashed 
violently across her solitary carriage, as the whole 
line of cars toppled over on their sides. 

There was the momentary hush which follows a 
disaster. Then the air was filled with moans and 
hurried volleys of Italian. Uninjured passengers 
crept out of their coupes, and tried to see the extent 
of the damage through the darkness. 

The accident had happened so quickly and almost 
noiselessly, that those who had been asleep and 
awoke unharmed were too bewildered to stir. 

Soon the guards began to run hither and thither, 
climbing up and opening the doors and looking in- 
side for killed or injured. 


AFTERWARD. 


199 


Mark Dascom awoke to find himself thrown from 
his seat to the floor, and sitting there in an almost 
standing position. He was unhurt, however. 

In a second, realizing what had happened, he 
groped to the door, and, seeing that they were on 
level ground, he let himself down to the platform for 
the guards running along the side, and felt his way 
to the next compartment. He peered inside. 

In the dimness he saw the still outline of a woman 
lying in a heap on the lower side. Forcing open the 
door, he crept in, looked into the face, and identify- 
ing Madeline, picked her up by a tremendous effort, 
as the car was so tilted that he could not stand ; by 
pulling himself along by the rack above his head, at 
last he reached the door. A guard swung his lantern 
toward them. The light flashed into Madeline’s 
face. Blood was trickling down her cheek. 

“Wait, sir, and Twill fetch a ladder.” 

Mark sank upon the low sill with his burden. 
He could not feel a throb of life, as he held her 
against his bosom. He felt for the arm hanging at 
her side. As he picked it up, a shiver ran through her 
frame. 

“Thank God, she is alive! ” he ejaculated, and then 
let her arm back as gently as possible, as he suspected 
that it was broken. 

The guard came back quickly. 


*200 


AFTEKWARb. 


On descending, Mark found himself near a clump oi 
umbrella pines. 

There was a faint light along the horizon, indicat- 
ing a late moon. Laying Madeline on the bed ol 
pine needles under the trees, he hastened back for his 
valise which contained a flask of brandy. He bathed 
her wrists and forced some down her throat. He 
was as utterly oblivious of the confusion an-d discord 
reigning ever^^where as though he were in a desert 
alone with his charge. 

The moon rose and flooded the landscape with a 
pale glow. 

Still that obstinate swoon continued, if it were a 
swoon. He felt desperate. He asked again and 
again for a doctor, but there was no doctor on the 
train. Something must be done. While he stood for 
a moment irresolute, a young woman who seemed 
to be alone and who had watched Mark’s efforts at- 
tentively, motioned him to one side, and kneeling 
beside Madeline, opened her heavy, close-fitting black 
dress from top to bottom, and loosened all the re- 
maining clothing; then putting her mouth to the 
still lips, she tried to renew life with her own. 

After a long time, the feeblest flutter rewarded her 
effort. Suddenly, a long, spasmodic breath, which 
seemed to almost lift the slight form from the ground, 
succeeded. The woman held out her hand for the 
brandy. 


Afterward. 


201 


At last! The hazel eyes opened wearily. The 
white lips quivered. She turned a solemn, far away 
gaze first on one and then on the other, looking as if 
she would search their souls, and fainted again. And 
so it continued until the gray dawn broke. 

Around them, on every hand, stretehed the dreary 
campagna. In the north were the mountains, in the 
south-east the misty dampness. Not a breath of 
wind stirred either from the sea or the mountains 
No relief tiain yet in sight, from Pisa. 

How Mark cursed the decaying sleep brooding 
over everything Italian. If a doctor did not come 
soon, or they did not speedily reach Pisa, she would 
die! While he was walking up and down, every 
muscle tense with anxiety, his eyes fixed continually 
in the direction of the city, he discerned a breath of 
smoke against the sky, and presently the funnel of 
an engine. 

“The train is coming.’^ 

He stood over Madeline, looking down at her 
with tender, sober watchfulness, as she lay under the 
shade of the lofty trees, her head in the lap of the 
young woman. 

“Where are you going?” said Mark, regarding 
their companion scrutinizingly. 

“ To Florence.” 

“Have you a husband or children? Must you 
go?” 


202 


AFTERWARD. 


“I Have no one/ ^ and the woman spread out her 
hands in melancholy emptiness. 

“Then come with us,“ he said authoritatively. 
“You are kind and gentle. You will be well paid.’' 

She flushed and hesitated, then said precipitately, 
“As you wish, sir. The lady needs me, surely.” 

“Yes, surely, indeed.” 

The two hours of their journey to Pisa dragged 
out in mortal slowness. 

Mark sat watching Madeline lying still and white, 
and in a half fainting condition, on the cushions be- 
fore him. 

The nurse sat on the floor beside Madeline, watch- 
ing every movement also, and gazing at times into 
the suffering face with a dull inquiry. Once or twice, 
she lifted almost caressingly the dark hair threaded 
with silver, and her eyes filled as she looked at the 
wound beneath. 

“It is bad — that cut !” and she turned to Mark. 
“I think she will be very sick,” she added in alow 
tone. 

“I hope not,” he said, idly wondering where his 
companion had learned her pretty English. 

The gray town was at last reached. The leaning 
tower disappeared behind them as if it were some 
bent ghost of the ancient past hurrying to mingle 
itself with the ruins buried on the swampy coast. 


AFTERWjLRl>. 


203 


The humble denizens of historic palaces falling into 
a slow decay glided past them on shuffling pattens, 
like exiled hyperboreans happy in modified snow- 
shoes. On every hand, as they drove through the 
city, poverty and splendor hob-nobbed in easy 
familiarity and made picturesque conditions. 

They finally reached a mean hotel with a sonorous 
name. 

Madeline was laid on a painted American bed- 
stead, beneath a vaulted blue ceiling dotted with 
stars, whose keystone or key picture was a Roman 
knight of semi-historic times. The room was musty, 
and ugly with pale colors, and opened upon the es- 
planade of the muddy Arno. It was a poor place 
but the best that Pisa could offer. 

If upholstery and house decoration were not mod- 
em pursuits in Pisa, chirurgery was, for in a few 
minutes a physician appeared whose touch and 
glance at once inspired confidence. 

Madeline's arm was set, and the wound in her 
forehead dressed with a deftness that left nothing to 
be desired. But, although these matters were well 
attended to, a fever hacl set in with the passing 
away of the faintness, and it proved to be as her 
nurse had foretold ; she was very ill. 

Her mind was in a tense, clear state, wonderfully 
unlike the apathy enveloping her the day before. 


204 


AFTERWARD. 


She watched the maid, watched the doctor, and re- 
ceived Mark’s messages with an attentive thought- 
fulness that let nothing escape. 

After a while, when alone with her nurse, she 
beckoned her to her bedside. 

“Tell me all about this accident. How did you 
come to be with me? How long was I unconscious ? 
Sit down,” as the woman, with her hands folded, 
stood beside her. 

“Madame know she hare a fall, n^est-ce pasP’^ 
Madeline nodded. 

“De car was up-tipped — so!” and over went her 
pretty hands. “Madanie’s husband — ” 

“What?” exclaimed Madeline. 

“Is not ze gentleman Madame’s husband? No? ” 

“No, oh, no! ” 

“Ze gentleman dat comes wid us go into dat car 
where you was and lift you out — so! — like a woman. 
I watched him long time before he observe me. He 
lays you under de tall pine, an dere you lay, dead, he 
tinks, first, an’ all ze night you like dat. He give you 
brandy. He rub 'your hands. Den I help. Very 
leetle use long time ! 

“De gentleman ask me” — she paused and looked 
at Madeline searchingly, but the face that gazed 
back at her was so pure and dignified and haughty, 


AFTERWARD. 


205 


that she dropped her eyes — “he ask me to stay wid 
you, an’ I say ‘3^es.’ If Madame do not want me, I 
go, but I want to stay.” 

“Tell me about yourself,” said Madeline kindly, 
although her heart was beating with a fluttering, 
angry throb. 

“Zare is leetle to tell. Sometime, if I stay wid 
Madame — Rosalia is alone in de world. Not much 
place for her, anywhere. Will Madame keep 
Rosalia? ” 

Madeline looked at her for a long time. 

The face was a good, sad, narrow face, not exactly 
timid, but hunted looking. Something matronly 
about its youthfulness suggested motherhood, and 
Madeline suspected the usual bitter story connected 
with so many peasants. It was an honest face, and 
not inquisitive. As she continued to look at Rosalia, 
the strength of her higher nature inspired the weaker 
one, and the maid gave expression to what had 
really been her belief ever since she had first seen 
Madeline — that here was a great and a good lady 
whom she would like to serve.' 

Madeline’s first impulse, under the excitement of 
the fever, was to tell Rosalia enough about Mr. 
Dascom to set her rustic mind at rest. Her next 
thought was that, if she were to have a useful and 


206 


AFTERWARD. 


respectful attendant, this was the last thing for her 
to attempt. Time would dispel Rosalia’s misgivings, 
if any still remained. 

‘‘I am afraid, Rosalia, that I maybe ill. You look 
like a woman I can trust, and I will trust you and 
keep you.” 

Rosalia fell on her knees beside Madeline. 

“Thank you, thank you, Madame!” 

She said these words so daintily, and looked so 
graceful kneeling there, that Madeline wondered who 
she was. She was such a curious blending of the lady 
and the servant. 

Rosalia seemed to define her thoughts, and, blush- 
ing violently, clasped her hands and almost cried, as 
she murmured — “I will be so good — so good, 
Madame.” 

“Say nothing more now, Rosalia. It is settled for 
the present. Now help me out of bed. I must 
dress.” 

“ Madame is too ill ! ” 

Madeline shook her head with determination. 
“Help me,” she commanded, in a low, firm voice. 

The maid sprang to her assistance, and proved 
very skillful. After much difficulty, and with many 
intervals of rest, she was dressed sufficiently to totter 
into the adjoining parlor, a soft white shawl about 
her shoulders, her face contracted and flushed, her 
dilated, sparkling eyes full of feverish determination.” 


AFTERWARD. 


207 


“Ring, Rosalia.’* 

The porter came. 

“Is Mr. Dascom in the hotel?** 

“Yes, Madame.” 

“Ask him to kindly call on me here, as soon as 
possible.’* 

“Yes, Madame.’* 

Mark appeared almost immediately. 

Madeline remained seated, but looked up with 
reserve at once sweet and cold. She motioned her 
guest to a chair. . 

Mark sat slightly bent forward, his surprise so 
great at seeing her dressed and sitting up, but evi- 
dently only by the greatest exertion, that he waited 
for her to speak with deep anxiety. He of course 
understood the nature of her communication. 

“Do you expect to remain long ki Pisa, Mr, 
Dascom!” 

“Possibly a week.” 

“May I ask where you go from Pisa? ” 

He looked at her long and steadfastly. “Do you 
think I followed you from Nice? ** - 

“Yes; Ido.” 

The words dropped from her lips clearly and 
coldly. 

“You think right,” he said, after a perceptible 
pause. 

“I did not believe you so thoughtless.** 


208 


AFTERWARD. 


“I was not thoughtless. Circumstances were 
against me, that was all. And yet, circumstances 
have justified me, I think. Your life and safety are 
of infinitely more value than appearances. Right 
doing, if excused, becomes substantially wrong do- 
ing. I would have apologized to you several hours 
ago, but the apology would only make matters 
worse. If I had done so, nothing could ever have 
convinced you that I did not do wrong.’^ 

“All the same, you did wrong.” 

“Let us allow that I did,” said Mark, with a 
gentle gravity that both soothed and irritated her. 
“You were leaving Nice, alone, in deep trouble, and 
it seemed only natural and proper since there was no 
one else to do so, that I should accompany you, un- 
seen, until I was sure that you were safe in Rome.” 

“And what then?” asked Madeline, a bright spot 
in the middle of either pale cheek. 

“I had not thought any further. I acted under a 
strong and sudden impulse. I had no wish or inten- 
tion to obtrude myself upon you, believe me, Mrs. 
Winchester.” '*He rose and stood before her. 

She looked up at him and then down. She had no 
^ doubt of the straightforwardness of his motives, so 
far as he himself was concerned. The world was so 
crooked and people so artificial that she felt a re- 
flected strength from his simplicity. But she also 
knew, alas ! with the world at the point of progress 


AFTERWARD. 


209 


it ivS, that women had better restrain their impulses. 
She therefore repressed any reeognition of this nine- 
teenth century knight errantry, and asked, but with 
a gentleness that made Mark know that he had im- 
pressed the truth uj)on her, “Will you leave Pisa to- 
morrow?” 

“If you wish it, yes.” 

She bowed, and then gave him a radiant smile. 
The breach was healed. 

“I would like to rise, Mr. Dascom, but I cannot. 1 
thank you again, warmly, for all you have done for 
me — and mine. Good-bye, once more.” 

He took her hand, bowed and withdrew. 

She tried to rise, tried to call Rosalia a few min- 
utes later, but the effort made her faint. She did not 
know anything for several hours, then, and when she 
did recover consciousness, she was in bed, and both 
her maid and the doctor beside her. 

It was April before she recovered sufficiently to 
travel. 


lA 


CHAPTER III. 


DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS. 

Mrs. Chauncy Aelerton was home.” She 
had been at home .every Wednesday from four till six 
since the first of December. It was now the last of 
March. She was glad that the state of being at home 
was nearly over for the season. April first would see 
her free to go anywhere, to do anything, to be any- 
where other than “at home” on successive Wednes- 
days. Still, if April first, by some strange metamor- 
phosis, had had the power to change itself to the 
December first recently numbered with its ancestors, 
Mrs. Chauncy Allerton would have forthwith issued 
a second set of cards and sat in her drawing room 
'in stately readiness to receive anew for two hours of 
each week for four months. 

She was a woman who had a reason for everything 
she did, and as each reason was discovered, or de- 
duced or induced, it became an infallible law and as 
binding as the Constitution. 

“At homes” were disagreeable things oftener than 

not for all concerned. Social statics required, how, 
210 


AFTERWARD. 


211 


ever, that a lady and her house should be accessible, 
formally, to certain individuals whom the receipt of 
announcement cards duly specified. Mrs. Chauncy 
Allerton, therefore, without change of day, had, for 
ten long years, been at home to her calling acquaint- 
ances, from four till six, from December first till 
April first, and it had chanced that not even death 
had stepped in to assert a prior claim to this specific 
time. 

Mrs. Saxby accordingly prepared to call on her 
with an assurance which the high east winds and 
snowy air did not dampen. She was perfectly sure 
that though no other guest might call Mrs. Allerton 
would be at home, and, as she really wanted to chat 
with her friend, the weather was auspicious. 

Rebecca's shining brougham and compact, bob- 
tailed cob soon brought her to Murray Hill. 

The butler, looking like an English lord, swung the 
wide oak door open, noiselessly swept back the 
portiere of the drawing room like an upholsterer, and 
in a deep, velvety voice announced, 

** Mrs. John Saxby ! " 

Mrs. Allerton came forward out of her shady 
solitude, with empressement. She had already sat 
one mortal hour, her thoughts her sole companions, 
and Rebecca was a godsend. Rebecca was one of 
the few persons whose social delinquencies would 


212 


AFTERWARD. 


better be forgiven, and Mrs. Allerton forgave them, 
therefore, although she had looked and longed lor 
this call all winter. 

“My dear, how fortunate! ” she exclaimed, taking 
both of Rebecca’s hands and pressing themferventl\\ 
“You have come at the eleventh hour — only one 
more Wednesday!” and she drew back as if the 
announcement frightened even herself with its awful 
possibility. “Still, you are here, and I am so glad to 
see you. Come, sit down by me near the window. 
This ugly March light is too high to make lamps ex- 
cusable. And 3 ^et the drawing-rooms are so drear\' 
without them ! Still, I never light my lamps in the 
day-time after February. I thought it all out, and, 
take it all in all, March first is the time to begin to 
get used to the long days. Do n’t you think so ? ” 

“Yes,” said Rebecca merrily, “I suppose it is, but I 
must confess that my lamps never troubled me to 
such an extent.” 

“0, it is no trouble. It is the habit of my mind. 1 
was born anahTic. Do you hear good news from 
your son?” 

“Yes. He will continue his travels till autumn, 
according to the original plan. Then he will return 
home to stay.” 

“Are n’t you afraid that you will find him denatioi- 
alized ? ” 

‘‘0, I think not. I hope not,” 


AFTERWARD. 


213 


Mi'vS. Allerton shook her head lugubnotisly. “It 
would be a great pity if he did come home disaffected. 
I think that is what ails Mark. He is as restless as 
a fish out of water unless he spends half his time on 
the other side. Nearly all his intimate friends are 
there.” 

“I never thought your brother was a society man,” 
and Rebecca opened her soft brown eyes in unfeigned 
astonishment. 

“ Neither is he, I am sorry to say. Mark is abso- 
lutely nothing. I can’t place him. He is so un-Amer- 
ican, and, when I am across the water with him, he 
is un-everything else. It all came from spending so 
much time at Bonn. I am sure you will find that 
you have made a great mistake in educating Carroll 
at Heidelberg and Berlin. Mark has so few of the 
traits prominent in our family. At least, if he had 
them by nature, he has lost them all in his Bohemian- 
ism. As for reasoning him out of his vagaries, I 
never heard him reason about aiivthing in my life! ” 
Mrs. Allerton clasped her hands tightly on her lap. 

“He never wavers, though, in what he does, and, 
as far as I can judge, never repents. He seems to 
know b}’’ intuition. That would be very unsatis- 
factory to me. I have a reason for ever^Thing — from 
my religion to my cook^s wages. It saves so much 
unrest of mind.” 


214 


UTERWARD. 


Rebecca looked at her and smiled softly. Her friend 
seemed to her like a fig, the sweetness encased with 
much resistent toughness. Perhaps it was the 
toughness which made her so capable. 

“Do you think Mark will ever marry?” asked 
Rebecca abruptly. 

“I used to think he would. I fear he never will, 
however, and I have an equal fear that he may.” 

“Why?” 

“He’ll do something queer or something foolish. If 
I could select a wife for Mark, I would like him to 
marry, and I am sure he would be happy, too ! A 
wife is the last thing he would accept from me, how- 
ever. There came a time when I stopped all efforts of 
that sort for Mark. They are never appreciated, 
anyway, and alwa^^s misjudged. He has an idea 
that he would know the woman at once who is to be 
his wife, if he met her. He thinks she would be a kind 
of Vishnu to him, recognized by certain infallible, 
sacred distinctions.” 

“A very pretty idea!” said Rebecca, with what 
seemed to Mrs. Allerton- undue solemnity. 

“A perfect boy’s idea! Mark has the ardor of 
youth in his romanticism. He may have a terrible 
downfall yet. I do not mind saying so to you, Mrs. 
Saxby, but Mark has been gone so unconscionably 
long, that I am very much afraid of some entangle- 
ment. O, it’s a thousand pities he didn’t marry 


AFTERWARD. 


216 


Miss Buxton. He only needed to ask her. EA^ery- 
body knew that. Family, property aud beauty! 
Three essentials the men of my family have always 
hitherto required. Mark laughs at family ; think of 
that!” and Mrs. Allerton expanded her clear, cold, 
kind blue eyes. ‘‘As for a pretty woman, he disdains 
prettiness. Once in a great while, he says, you find a 
really handsome woman who is not vain. But a 
pretty woman — never! Property is no* temptation 
to him. He has such a fatal gift at money-making, 
that I believe a poor woman would have a presump- 
tive claim to his attention.” She sighed. 

Rebecca had achieved the object of her call without 
any self-betrayal, and now, as the high, dreary light 
had changed to somber twilight, she rose to go. 

Mrs. Allerton followed her into the hall, detaining 
her with an excess of cordiality that never wavered, 
whatever might be Rebecca’s omissions. As Mrs. 
Saxby’s brougham rolled away, she said, ” Compton, 
tell Miss Blanche that I wish to see her in the draw- 
ing-room.” 

A soft rustling on the stairs a minute or two later, 
preceded the appearance of Blanche. “Do you want 
me, mamma? ” 

“Yes, come here,” and Mrs. Allerton, patting the 
sofa beside her, indicated Blanche’s seat. 

The daughter sat down demurely, and, folding 
her hands in her lap, said : 


216 


AFTKRWARD, 


“What is it, mamma?” 

“Carroll Saxby is coming home in the autumn.” 

Mother and daughter gazed at each other in si- 
lence, and as if the fact were of great importance. 

“Just in time for your coming out, darling. Noth- 
ing could be nicer.” 

“Twenty other girls in our circle are coming out, 
too.” Blanche pursed her beautiful mouth. 

Mrs. Allerton tossed her head, and her daughter 
flushed slightly with conscious power. 

“Not one will have your advantage. I’ll trust 
your American beauty and English breeding. There 
is not a young man we know who doesn’t consider 
it more of a privilege to talk five minutes with you 
than an entire evening with any one of the others. 
Between old Judith and me, no sultana could have 
been more guarded than a^ou have been. You cannot 
help being a belle vour first season, Blanche. I am 
sure it will all depend on yourself whether Carroll 
Saxby proposes. Your father would be pleased, you 
know. On the whole, no one that we know could 
be more desirable. Our family and the Saxby 
money! Fancy your power, Blanche.” 

For answer Blanche smiled sweetly, but said 
nothing, tapping her pretty foot a little impatiently 
and heaving a sigh that might be a yawn.* She was 
well used to these plannings of her mother. She was 
conscious, too, that she had really brilliant social 


AFTERWARD. 


217 


prospects, and was not specially averse to Carroll as 
a future husband. Nevertheless the blood ran too 
cool in her veins for her to make blunders in either 
common sense or romance. She had also the rare 
faculty of being honest with herself, a point in com- 
mon bet ween her and her Uncle Mark, with whom she 
was a favorite. 

“Well, mamma,” said Blanche, finally, and chiefly to 
break the silence, “whether my choice shall fall on 
Carroll, or his on me, remains to be seen. Dear me, 
my coming out is nearly a year off! What might 
not happen between now and then? ” 

“Of course, of course. But it is well to be prepared 
for any event. I thought you would like to know 
when Carroll is coming back.” 

“Yes.” 

Blanche had risen. She was a beautiful girl — tall, 
long-limbed, her youthful slenderness well rounded. 
She had blue eyes, not unlike her mother’s in their 
clearness and coldness. Her short upper lip revealed 
even and very white teeth. Her mouth was fineH 
formed and indicated strength of character, with 
which the curve of her chin and throat accorded. 
She might have been Atalanta. There was a Greek 
simplicity and severity about the knot of flaxen hair 
held in its place by a long shell pin, the folds of her 
dark blue dress, and the round but slender contour 
of her white hands. 


218 


AFTERWARD. 


Mrs. Allerton Had “reasoned^’ out her daughte-r^s 
possibilities as she had those of her brother, and 
though she had had no perceptible influence on Mark 
Dascom, yet Blanche, she fancied, was as pliable as 
clay. 

Mrs. Saxby meanwhile had reached home in a very 
thoughtful mood. 

A letter from Madeline, mentioning Mark Dascom 
had tormented her curiosity and awakened her solici- 
tude. It was a year and three months now since 
Mr. Winchester's death, and although Madeline 
wrote freely of her life from day to day, she gave no 
hint of returning. She had passed the first summer 
and autumn in Aix-les-Bains, and was now in Rome, 
studying. But there must have been many a long 
gap of weariness and solitude which study could not 
bridge. Rebecca felt anxious lest her fine character 
should grow -warped and narrow from recluse 
habits. She hung just the faintest thread of hope on 
this mention of Mark Dascom, to which her con- 
versation with Mrs. Allerton had added a little 
fuel. It would be a strange conjunction of affairs if 
Madeline made a second brilliant marriage with the 
odds so much against her. Rebecca fancied the bomb- 
shell the news of such an engagement would be in 
the social camp. She pictured Mrs. Allerton’s morti- 
fication and communicativeness, for Mrs. Allerton 
was such a ceaseless talker that when she could not 


AFTERWARD. 


219 


give lier reasons for an event, she was equally garru- 
lous in giving those against it. It was impossible to 
think of Madeline entering that family without open 
warfare between Mark and his sister. 

Rebecca felt vexed the next minute for fancying a 
second marriage possible to a woman with 
Madeline’s cold self-restraint. It was true that she 
had not seen her friend in a long time, and Madeline 
might have changed very much. Her letters cer- 
tainly were very ambitionless. Nevertheless, if she 
were ever to take up her old life again, even in a 
quiet form, it was time that she came back to New 
York, and a second marriage would enable her to do 
this with perfect ease. 

Rebecca wrote a long letter to Madeline that even- 
ing, dwelling at great length on the danger of form- 
ing too strong a love for isolation and acquiescence 
in conditions that effort and new social ties could 
remove. 

When this letter reached Madeline, she was about 
leaving Rome for Florence. 

It was a mild, sunny day in April when she and 
Rosalia arrived, toward nightfall. The Florentine 
valley, opening to the east and west, looked, in its 
spring freshness, like the chalice of some beautiful 
flower spreading its petals to the rising and the set- 
ting sun. An intense redness bloomed over the west- 
ern sky, and above it arched the unclouded blue, 


220 


AFTERWARD. 


against which in bold relief was outlined the heigbts 
of San Miniato, Giotto’s Campanile, and the huge 
dome of the cathedral. The Ponte Vecchio, with its 
battlements of antique buildings of varied heights, 
looked like some architectural pawnbroker’s shop, 
from whose windows Shy locks might have peered as 
becomingly as from the Rialto. The city itself, in its 
grayness and solidity, was like a primeval rock utib 
ized for purposes of human habitation. From every 
quarter pealed the bells of Campanile church, or con- 
vent, striking the violet-scented air with tender 
sweetness and touching Madeline to tears. 

She had risen from her sick bed the year before 
with a childlike gentleness of spirit, with her old 
poise of purpose, and a timid, though healthy, desire 
to make a new place for herself in life. 

Rosalia had cared for her with such devotion and 
was so unobtrusive and silent, that she minded her 
presence no more than she would have done that of a 
faithful dog. 

As she drove to her hotel, on that balmy evening 
through ^larrow streets already filled with darkness 
and the dampness that even the midday sun rarely 
dispelled, across squares flanked by mediseval, 
frowning palaces, and then past the portal of a ven- 
erable church, she recalled the wandering of those 
two solitary, flaming spirits who, as poet and 
preacher, made the greatest moral fame of Florence. 


AFTERWARD. 


221 


They had suffered. The^^ had drunk the cup of bit- 
terness to the dregs. Death had remorselessly 
followed. It had not been so hard as that with her. 
They had been homeless, and so, it was true, was 
she. But their sufferings had been for strangers, and 
hers had been for and through her own. 

High above her gleamed the slender spires of San 
Miniato, and its marbles caught the last beams of 
the fading light. There the heart treasures of gen- 
erations were buried, but the spires pointed upward, 
and over them was tbe far-reaching blue, beyond 
which in some undiscovered, spiritual space — who 
could tell — dwelt those gone before. With such a sky 
covering the whole world, the gates of heaven were 
everywhere. The fancy soothed her, and a vague yet 
comforting sense of companionship with her children 
filled her whole being. 

They drove along the quay overlooking the Arno, 
now swollen to its utmost size and riTshing in turbu- 
lent, yellow sullenness under its many bridges. 
Presently they entered a small square upon which 
faced a hotel with the name so universal in Europe, 
— Hotel de la Paix, — and there they settled down till 
June. 

Madeline began a course of reading and study, and 
spent hours in the Pitti and the Uffizi galleries before 


222 


AFTERWARD. 


master-pieces to which, although her fingers did 
scant justice, her eyes and heart paid the reverence 
and rapture of a devotee. 

All day long, and during the night hours too, she 
gave herself no chance to think of self. She had done 
that for years. In this solitary life it must never be 
allowed. “The past is past !” she would exclaim, 
rising, no matter at what hour she found herself 
wakeful, and resuming her books. She could not tell 
one^ day from another, often, in her relentless dis- 
cipline. 

Rosalia, who knew the signs of sorrow and trouble, 
as does every living creature who has passed through 
a fiery furnace, watched this self-repression so sys- 
tematically pursued with a dumb astonishment, but 
a sagacious conception that made her more passive 
than ever. 

“The lady lashes herself, but God had to take a 
poor creature like me in hand,” she sometimes mur- 
mured to herself. 

Although this inner fire of self-mastery consumed 
Madeline's being, still, the conquest of bitterness, and 
the petty narrowness revolving around personal con- 
ditions, the childish cry for more love for self, more 
ease of pride, — this conquest, if gradual, was sure. 
The old Madeline of the years before disgrace and loss 
came back for a brief period occasionally, but only to 


AFTERWARD. 


223 


be buried again. The new Madeline could not under- 
stand the old Madeline, but the old Madeline would 
have laughed in derision, could she have caught a 
glimpse of the nearly consummated evolution of de- 
sire and purpose. How useless it would be, did God 
reveal heaven to us before His purposes had been ful- 
filled! 

In June, when the weather was growing too warm 
to render a longer sojourn advisable, Madeline made 
arrangements for their going further North. 

While Rosalia was packing the trunks on the last 
day of their stay, contrary to her usual custom, Mad- 
eline went out alone in the afternoon, feeling a sud- 
den, intense desire for the open air and solitude. 

She wandered idly along the river, studying familiar 
objects in the landscape with a good-bye tenderness, 
and finallj^ reached the entrance to the pretty public 
gardens. It was too early for the equestrians or the 
endless line of carriages that a little later would 
make the tour of the park. She walked on, still fol- 
lowing the river side, and sitting down occasionally 
to rest or enjoy the flowers. She came at last to a 
long avenue extending for a mile or more under 
sycamores so thickly planted, interwoven, and 
clipped, as to make avast bower of the most delight- 
ful shade and coolness. 

The sunlight flickered faintly through the heavy 
foliage, mottling the smooth avenue here and there, 


224 


AFTERWARD. 


and piercing the woods to the right with a long, 
slender, dazzling beam. The air was filled with the 
perfume of roses, lilies and violets. A white, flowering 
tree shone with a pale glory at intervals among the 
other trees. A ruin crowning an eminence to the left, 
in the distance, and looking dim and uncertain in the 
quivering hot air dancing over the meadows and bare 
hills beyond the Arno, gave her a far away feeling 
which took possession of her with overwhelming 
force. She walked slowly on, this dreamy sensation 
affecting her almost like a premonition. 

No breath of air fluttered her thin, black skirts, 
clinging in cr^py softness to her fragile, willow}^ 
form. Frail as she looked, there was vitality in her 
step and expression. Her face had the undefinable 
and pathetic sweetness of patience and unshed tears, 
but it also revealed a high courage. 

She came suddenly upon an immense rose tree set 
at an angle where it caught the sun, and a mass, 
now, of the most sumptuous, double pink roses, their 
heads bent over, and looking as though they would 
faint with the excess of their own beauty and per- 
fume. It held her spell-bound. She thought of the 
jeweled plants in Dante’s Paradiso, where each 
flower was a soul, and it seemed to her as if the 
sweetness of those roses must speak in a heavenlv 
language. 


AFTERWARD. 


225 


Her parasol dropped over her shoulder, its black 
edge making a soft shadow on her face. A faint, 
almost listening smile quivered on her lips. All at 
once, her fancy dissolved with its very airiness. She 
looked up with a little sigh. There stood Mark 
Dascom in the avenue, a short distance off, and 
looking at her much as she had regarded the flowers. 
He came forward, and extending his hand, said : 
Y'du do not own Florence too, as well as Pisa, 1 
sincerely hope? ” 

She glanced at him a second with straightforward 
clearness, a slight added paleness settling upon her 
face, as she replied simply, “I do not own Florence.” 
She said this in a way to disclaim ownership in Pisa, 
also, and Mark did not know whether she was dis- 
pleased or afraid, or unwilling to commit herself 
further. 

She had turned and began now to retrace her 
steps. 

“ May I walk with you, Mrs. Winchester? ” 

”Yes.” 

‘*Have,you entirely recovered your health? ” 
Entirely, thanks. When did you arrive ? ” 

“This morning. I leave to-night.” 

“ Yes? ” She looked up and smiled. “You make a 
short stay.” 

“I would not dare remain longer,” 

16 


226 


AFTERWARD. 


“You certainl^^run .a risk in coining from the North 
at this season.” 

“I was conscious of that, before starting,” and he 
looked at her intently. 

She colored slightly. “I presume you have become 
hardened to all climates by this time. I forgot what 
a traveler you are.” 

“On the contrary, I am extremely sensitive to 
atmospheric changes. Still, they never deter me.” 

“You may be overtaken with a serious illness, 
sometime. You would better be prudent.” 

“We may be prudent in having counted the cost 
and risked everything on a journey.” 

“lean hardly imagine any enterprise so valuable 
as that. In middle life, health and peace of mind are 
precious possessions.” 

“Sometimes one depends on the other. What then? 
Which would you sacrifice first? ” 

“I could hardly judge for another.” 

“You do not look like one of those material per- 
sons who would preserve health at all costs, Mrs. 
Winchester.” 

“I am sorry to be so uncomplimentary, Mr. Das- 
com, but you have precisely that air,” she said, 
laughing. 

“Then appearances are against me,” said Mark, 
smiling, but greatly relicyed to obtain this familieir 
little concession. 


AFTERWARD. 


227 


They came out of the shady avenue, and began 
crossing an open space laid out in flowerbeds and 
grass plots, and a favorite resort for nurses and 
children. There were a score of little ones chasing 
one another over the lawns or playing with their 
bonnes, Madeline, feeling tired, sat down on a 
bench. 

Across the lawn stretched a line of pepper trees, 
whose fringe-like foliage cast a shadow over a row 
of potted orange trees, all in bloom, and saturating 
the hot air with their heavy perfume. Below these, 
trained and trimmed with Italian precision, but full 
of flowers, was a third row of tea-rosebushes, whose 
yellow, white and pink blossoms mingled their more 
delicate odor with the fragrance of the orange trees. 

They gazed on the beautiful bloom and greenness 
in silence. No two persons could have been more 
fully conscious of each other’s presence. No two per- 
sons could have felt more entire present independence 
of each other’s opinion. 

He was aware that he possessed Madeline’s respect, 
and at this stage in their acquaintance, that was 
sufficient. Ever since that night whenshelay injured 
under the umbrella pines and had first gazed into the 
faces of her watchers, Madeline had been aware of 
his love. At Pisa, her onH thought was to send him 
away as quickly as possible, and with as much kind- 
ness as the circumstances woul(J permit. “And yet 


228 


AFTERWARD. 


here he is again ! ” was what she said to herself over 
and over, sitting beside him in the Casaine. She did 
not get any further in her thought. She felt under 
no moral or social obligations to make herself 
agreeable, and, not being inclined to conversation, 
continued silent. 

Mark looked down at her once or twice while ap- 
parently making a study of the pepper trees and the 
children But, even in the midst of all the brightness 
and movement around them, their mutual silence 
grew oppressive. Mark was willing enough to break 
it, but, say what we may to the contrary, voiceless- 
ness is very contagious. If only she would say some- 
thing about herself he could follow it up, and gain a 
clue to her thoughts and occupations. But she sat 
there as serene as a sphynx, and with a beauty as 
delicate and pervasive as that of the flowers across 
the lawn. 

He had intended to talk to her about himself, some- 
what, but, as this could be done only incidentally, 
and as if by the purest accident, he cast about in his 
mind desperately for some other subject. He 
thought of many acquaintances that they must al- 
most inevitably have in common, but then again, 
with her past what it was, acquaintances might 
prove to be the most objectionable subject in the 
world. 


AFTERWARD. 


2^9 


At this juncture Madeline herself said : 

*‘Tell me about your travels, Mr. Dascom. I have 
gained the impression that you have been every- 
where.^^ 

“Not that! But I have gone further than many, 
and had ‘vicissitudes both by land and sea.’^^ 

“That sounds very appropriate in Virgil’s own 
land. I am making a comparative study of Latin 
and Italian, and get much enjoyment out of it.” 

“If you commence on that line, you will have to 
continue indefinitely; take all the Aryan languages 
and include a search for their ancestral birth-place. 
I believe it is located in Europe now, instead of 
Asia.” 

“Somewhat, perhaps, on the principle the Greeks 
adof)ted when they made everything emanate from 
Athens.^’ 

“Not exactly. It is not necessarily Rome or Paris 
or London. It is Germany. The new theories seem 
very plausible to me, too. I never have been enough 
of a mystic to have a prejudice in favor of theories 
that point to India as the conservator of everything 
most intellectual. Why not Europe, which is cer- 
tainly the center geographically? There should be 
no waste in any kind of development. One might 
imagine Europe as the little spot of heat from which 
the whole flame of knowledge emanated, east and 


230 


AFTERWARD. 


west, a wind of favoring influence to waft it first in 
one direction and then in anoth:?r. Are you very 
fond of philology ? 

“0, yes.’’ 

She spoke indifferently, and as if she might re- 
lapse into silence again. 

So Mark hastened to add : 

“I have a curious old English translation of 
Juvenal in my pocket now, that I picked up the 
other da,y.” He took out the tiny book and handed 
it to her. 

She glanced through it curiously, and then, as the 
volume opened of itselt at the preface, a sentence 
attracted her attention. It read in this wise: 

“Should any female presume to cast her eyes over the 
flaming poesies of Juvenal’s satires, reading therein what 
may well make the strongest man falter, let the translator 
assure herself that she will forever forfeit the respect due to 
the natural modesty of a virtuous woman.’’ 

She pointed to the passage, and, looking at Mark, 
said: 

“How hardly women have escaped in this nine- 
teenth century from the superstition that ignorance 
is innocence. If I could stand yonder, in the doorway 
of Galileo’s house, with this bopk in my hand, here in 
Florence, where Dante bewailed the same corruption 
that Juvenal did in Rome, — the corruption of both 
cities in selling their fairest daughters for dowries, — 
I would say the world moves.” 


AFTERWARD 


231 


^‘Sucli sales are effeeted in London, Paris and New 
York to-day. I have a beautiful nieee, white as 
yonder lily,^^ and he pointed to a resplendent, tall 
flower. “She will be offered to the highest bidder. 
She is a hot-house bloom that will mature for the 
market by next autumn.” 

“There are lilies as white as th it who have kept 
tlieir purity through just such knowledge as this,” 
and Madeline tapped the book. 

“You use very masculine English.” 

“I did not know that there is sex in English, as 
there is certainly not in knowledge. Sex is a purely 
physical limitation.” 

“What do you mean? ” 

“ What do you think I mean ? ” She looked at him 
with a Diana-like severity, as if she were Hypatia 
quCvStioning some athletic Greek attending her 
lectures. 

“I suppose you mean that a woman can do just 
what a man can.” 

“0, no — not that!” and she waved her hand in 
deprecating contempt. “Surely not that ! To know 
is not to do. I merely mean that a woman may do 
what she can.” 

‘ ‘ Your epigram is easy to remember.” 

“The belief in it has saved many a woman’s reason, 
and I do not know but that it has saved her soul.” 


232 


AFTERWARD. 


“But your epigram does away with all moral 
issues.’’ 

“Morality requires a corollary, but applicable to 
both sexes. You cannot put all possible issue into 
one epigram any more than you can into one geomet- 
rical proposition. The statement that a straight 
line is the shortest possible distance between two 
points does not make the statement of other mathe- 
matical truths useless. Each new one merely pre- 
supposes the old ones, that is all.” 

Her head sat on her neck like a bird’s whose atten- 
tion is arrested. Her eyes were full of light. “Only 
a woman, who may do what she can, is a moral 
agent,” she added, as if this were conclusive. 

“You do not think that men were born the natural 
leaders of women ? ” 

“Do I think that this hand is made to rule this 
one? ” and she extended first one slender gloved hand 
and then the other. “Do I think my right eye leads 
my left?” 

She looked at him with almost naive astonishment, 
as if all that she said were so clear that it was folly 
to give it expression. 

“But one docs lead, doubtless, in every case.” 

“It merely depends upon position, or training, or 
convenience, or other causes just as incidental. Thev. 
are supplementary.” 

“But both necessary.” 


Afterward. 


2^3 


“As supplements, yes. I cannot imagine a world 
Without men and women both/’ 

“ Neither can I,” said Mark heartily. “ I have not 
crystallized rny views on this subject to the extent 
that you have yours.” 

“ Crystallization grows out of certain conditions. 
You never have a view on any subject, I suspect, till 
there is a need for it. I mean, an opinion so well 
rooted and grounded that we will live by it or die 
for it.” 

“Certainly my views on this subject have no such 
depth. I presume, in fact, that they would be largely 
colored by the kind of women I came in contact with. 
As I told you at Nice, I have known very few, and I 
really believe that I have never known the latitude 
and longitude of any single woman’s nature. I have 
a sister, an only sister. When we meet, our natures 
slip one past the other. They don’t even collide. 
They have never once intermingled so that we saw 
each other soul to soul, or even mind to mind. I 
could fancy myself making a warm friend out of a 
woman who was intellectual only.” 

“Do not waste your time in that way. Such a 
woman is always cruel and often vindictive. If she 
is lymphatic, too, she is a travesty on the best and 
highest in woman. I am speaking morally,” said 
Madeline. 


234 


AFTERWARD. 


He had made a discovery. The very earnestness 
and freedom and even vehemence with which she had 
spoken, after she had once allowed herself to break 
the silence, convinced him that she had been much 
alone, and that when she did allow herself to talk, 
the sound of her own voice was sweet. But it was 
sweeter far to him, and these intense convictions 
showed him the real woman beneath. They betrayed 
a vitality of thought and feeling as well, for each is 
needed to fully emphasize the other. She seemed un- 
aware, however, that she had spoken warmly, but 
her face had a flush he had never seen there before. 
There was an almost pathetic unconsciousness about 
her as she arose. It conveyed an intense impression 
of her solitariness. She seemed momentarily hardly 
aware of him. Her thought had traveled away into 
haunts which were for herself alone. She came back 
though, in an instant, and inquired at what hotel he 
was stopping. 

“Hotel d' Italie,’^ said Mark, hardly able to 
suppress his eagerness. Would she ask him to 
call? 

“That is near my hotel, the Hotel de la Paix. At 
what hour do you leave ? 

“At midnight.^’ 

“Unless you are otherwise engaged I should be 
glad to see you an hour or two after dinner.’' 

He bowed. 


AFTERWARD. 


235 


“Good-b^^e, then, for the prcvsent.’^ 

She slightly inclined her head. She did not give 
him her hand, and walked slowly away, with that 
peculiar poise and airiness of step that so few women- 
have, and which can never be cultivated. 

At half past eight, Mark appeared. 

He looked about Mrs. Winchester’s parlor while 
waiting. It contained a piano, and an easel on which 
was a copy of Raphael’s Florentine Fornarina. He 
thought this a curious picture for her to buy, if it 
were hers. What thought of hers did that face and 
the strong body with its little hand express? 
There were many books lying around, and loose 
piles of mounted photographs. The room in other 
respects was like the usual vast apartments in old 
Italian palaces converted into hotels. Its propor- 
tions were immense. Its hangings were in bright red. 
Numerous candles were lighted. There was a huge 
bowl of roses on a table. 

When Madeline entered, Mark was still puzzling 
over the Fornarina. The contrast was so vivid, as he 
turned from its Southern fullness of strength, be- 
tween it and his advancing hostess, that he regarded 
her as he might have done a moving picture. 

She was dressed in a gown of thin white, whose 
only furbelows were tucks and hems. A bunch of 
violets at waist and throat, a fall of abundant, 
creamy black-edged lace from the wrists, and a mass 


236 


afiterward. 


of it fitting closely to her neck, added to her purity 
and etherialness of expression. She was indescrib- 
ably beautiful. 

“You are studying my Fornarina,’^ she said, glanc- 
ing at the painting almost lovingly. “You do not 
like it, I am almost sure.’^ 

“Why?^’ asked Mark, surprised. 

“Because you are physically so strong that you 
could never gain the rest from it that it affords me. 
It makes me feel vigorous just to look at it. See, it 
is not coarse, as some think,” and she stepped in 
front of the picture. “ That is a very small hand, 
but I have seen many a one just as little on the de- 
scendants of the ancient Romans in the Trastevere. 
And they have this same breadth and strength and 
gracefulness of shoulders. It is a face that has not 
suffered. It could suffer. If it were thin or older, 
the fire would be concentrated. There might be too 
much, that is all. She is to me a dark, glowing, 
healthy Italian beauty, not great, but sweet, with a 
pastoral goodness that one would not see outside of 
Italy. Many a woman like that lives and dies and 
never knows the heart there is within her. Look! 
her heart is not awake. She has a heart.” 

“It becomes very beautiful after your analy- 
sis. And, although I am strong, I admire strength, 
too, even mere physical strength. But that was all 


AFTERWARD. 


237 


I saw in the picture, and I presume you will agree 
with me that animal force alone in a human being is 
offensive.” 

“Yes, of course. But I never see it alone.” 

“When it predominates,” said Mark, thoughtfully, 
“it affects me as though it were alone. I can under- 
stand the motive that induced Plato to reduce his 
immense proportions by dwelling in an unhealthy 
section of Athens until he contracted quartan ague. 
It was a heroic remedy, I grant, for too much health. 
There is such a thing as too much health; don’t you 
think so? ” 

“ 0, yes. Half the dull people are stupid because 
they have too much physique for their brains. I sup- 
pose they were intended for draught-horses, and 
missed their vocations. Really, unless one believes 
in fate, there are many misplaced persons.” 

“ I believe that there are fatal periods in all our 
lives, when we are like leaves in the eddy of a whirl- 
pool. But people are not misplaced. It is altogether 
their own fault if they do not adjust themselves to 
varying or unvarying conditions.” 

“Do you think so, truly ? ” 

She had not yet sat down, and stood before him 
with her hands clasped, as if she would draw some 
kind of comforting help from the statement. 

He understood how the effort of years was put into 
that question, and, although her face and life and 


238 


AFTERWARD. 


general thought indicated that she had acted as if 
such a theory were true, still there was something 
about her that showed that the victory had been 
hardly won, and as if her battle-field might require 
the ransom of her life. 

For answer, he drew an arm-chair forward for her. 
She sat down. The red cushions gave her face more 
warmth. 

don’t approve of too close deductions,” he said, 
after seating himself. “We each understand how far 
from complete onr vicarious sacrifice is, and it is 
something belonging so peculiarly to ourselves that 
I doubt whether any one can ever speak except for 
himself. There have been ups and downs in my own 
life, but never one that I did not positively know that 
I could surmount. I do not say that I have fulfilled 
the measure of my possibilities, but I have never 
doubted that I could and ought. There is nothing 
grander in this world than a man or woman who 
fights that good fight to the bitter end.” 

For the first time since she had known him, she felt 
his influence. Her eyes wavered a second and then 
suddenly filled with tears. She felt afraid of any 
other human strength than her own, unless it came 
to her in general ways as through sermons or music. 
She had dwelt for years, so to speak, in the higher 
temperate zones of feeling, and this sudden, involun- 
tary response in her soul to something individual, 


AFTERWARD. 


239 


and meant, she knew, as a direct tribute to her years 
of endeavor, softened her whole attitude toward 
Mark. The next instant she was embarrassed lest he 
should interpret her feeling beyond mere sympathetic 
emotion. 

But Mark was not an interpreter. He was a con- 
tinual actor. He meant to awaken the slumbering 
emotions of her nature. He saw that their repressed 
fire would consume her eventually, if they did not find 
egress. Say what we may to the contrary, there are 
times in a woman’s life when she has to be helped to 
the knowledge of her own needs. She is only to be 
pitied when she is assisted by the wrong person. 

He ventured a direct personal question. 

“Do you intend to return to New York soon? ” 

“Yes, Ido.” 

“I should think you would feel homesick, som - 
times, living here alone.” 

“I wish I did. I have been away so long that I feel 
like a stranger, and shall go back as a stranger. 
Then I have been alone so long, too, that I am more 
used to it, even in thought, than to a life full of 
people. I am sure I shall have a hundred sudden 
shocks and frictions in taking up life with and for 
others.” 

“But it is the only right life.” 

“0, yes, of course,” she replied, with great earnest- 

ness. “ It is because of the general rightness that I 


240 


AFTERWARD. 


am going back and going where I belong. You see I 
believe that New York was meant from all time for 
my environment. At all events, I understand New 
York, whether it understands me or not.’^ 

‘'It is no matter whether it understands you any 
more than that instrument yonder. New York 
means what 3^011 can get out of it, or any other place 
— Florence, for instance. You have gained in health 
here, I am sure." 

"Yes." 

"And painting, and philology, and music." 

"A little music." 

"Instead of asking you whether you will play or 
sing for me, I am going to ask you to let me sing." 

Her eyes beamed with delighted surprise. They 
went to the instrument, side by side. 

"It is to be an English song? " 

"An American song! " 

He struck some chords. Then, without prelimi- 
nary melody, he sang, in a full, resonant bar3’tone, 

"My country, ’tis of thee, 

Sweet land of liberty." 

When he had finished, she leaned upon the instru- 
ment and said, "But that is an English air." 

He played a few runs while looking at her and be- 
yond her. Then his fingers caressed from the instru_ 
ment that sweetest and most appealing of all mel- 
odies in a foreign land, "Home, Sweet Home." 


AFTERWARD. 24^1 

He sang it with the lingering tenderness of a 
woman. His voice had fine scope in that immense 
apartment, and the simple words and simple air a 
beguiling sadness, where there was nothing to sug- 
gest the conditions of the lyric. As he sang the last 
word, he touched a few chords preliminary to play- 
ing Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. 

She felt lifted up as if by the grand flight of huge, 
white wings to a rarified atmosphere of contempla- 
tion and serenity. 

“Thank you, so much!” she said, softly, when he 
had finished. 

He looked at her with a kind, pleased glance. He 
drew out his watch. “I have to keep aware of the 
time, and I regret to say that I must leave instantly. 
When shall you cross ? ” 

“In the autumn, I think. I shall go North with 
Rosalia somewhere, for the summer, probably to 
Switzerland.” 

“I shall hunt you up.” 

Her hazel eyes darted an involuntary look of 
warning. Then she said : 

“I do not believe that could be worth your while. 
You too will return to New York eventually ? ” 

“Yes, but in the interval I hope to see you at least 
once.” 

16 


242 


AFTERWARD. 


She felt that it would be ridiculous and unnecessary 
to resist any further, and said quietly, presume I 
shall summer in Interlachen.” 

When he had gone, she stood just within the door 
where she had bade him good-bye, motionless for 
several minutes. He had left with her an odd impres- 
sion. The blood in her veins had not seemed stag- 
nant before he came, and yet, as she lingered there, 
she had a curious and unexplainable feeling of being 
alive, ill some new, subtle sense. It was as if she had 
suddenly gained a youthful flexibility of impulse and 
volition, and still had all the wisdom and the sad- 
ness, alas! of maturity. 

“Rosalia, ’’said Madeline on entering her bedroom, 
“go to bed. I shall not need you to-night. We will 
not leave till day after to-morrow ; so call me in the 
morning at the usual hour.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


AN ENCOUNTER. 

The day on which they left Florence was heav- 
enly. 

Every life has its periods of quiet and activit3^ 
The latter often seem the fruit-bearing seasons, but 
in the former purposes are evolved and problems 
solved and power stored which are the absolute 
measure of all that follows. 

No sensation in this life is sweeter than that of har- 
mony — that personal harmony, in which one’s own 
mind, body and spirit are in unison, and so assimila- 
tive that, no matter what the condition of the 
weather, the contrariety of circumstances, or the 
temperament of surrounding people, the spirit has an 
extractive power of all that is good and sweet and 
appropriate to itself. This is perhaps as much an 
absurdity to those who have not felt it as the 
miracles of Jesus were to Renan, and as great a mys- 
tery when we try to offer an explanation as the com- 
position of a lily is from such apparently unlikely 


244 


AFTERWARD. 


antecedents as earth, air and moisture. But the lilies 
bloom in profusion, nevertheless, and this surpassing 
sweetness of soul is an experience not uncommon, 
but invariably the result of very unworldly pro - 
cesses. 

Madeline felt in this way as she traveled North. 

They stayed in Milan tbe first night. 

She amused herself in the late afternoon, on the da v 
of their arrival, in wandering through the new 
arcades opening off the square which the colossal 
statue of Leonardo da Vinci dominates. At twilight 
they went into the cathedral, a little further on. The 
bronze cross, on which the effigy of Christ hangs sus- 
pended from the great dome, had caught the last sun- 
beams falling through the blue and crimson glass of 
the clerestory, and shone in a wierd and impressive 
reflection that dotted the crown of thorns here and 
there with tips of somber light. Far down the nave, 
mellowed by the vast distance and the lofty height, 
resounded the thrilling strains sung by a band of 
choir boys who, headed by priests bearing lighted 
candles, were marching from a side chapel to the 
choir. 

Madeline glanced down at Rosalia, who had knelt, 
and who often evinced a responsiveness and apprecia- 
tion that lifted her to the dignity of a companion. 
The tears were rolling down her face. Her hands 


AFTERWARD. 


245 


were clasped. Her qyqs were fixed in absorbed 
appeal on the bronze Christ so high above her and so 
far away. 

The mistress stepped back, startled by the expres- 
sion of agony and abandonment on the face that had 
often soothed her own unrest by its habitual pas- 
sivity. Rosalia swayed back and forth as her lips 
moved in prayer. Evidently, she was undergoing a 
crisis of feeling. 

The throng of wondering worshipers and sight- 
seers had passed out or congregated near the high 
altar where a service was being conducted. Maid 
and mistress were quite alone. 

“Madame,” said Rosalia, looking sadly into 
Madeline’s face as she rose. She leaned her face 
against the stony fluting of a pillar, and Madeline 
stood beside her, patiently and wonderingly, as the 
poor creature sobbed bitterly. 

“It is so hard, Madame. You tink Rosalia good. 
I )e world call her bad; perhaps not de Christus up 
dere, but de world! 0, Madame, de tings simple 
folks suffer because dey believe oders good when dey 
is great! Now I will tell you. 

“I is not a French woman, Madame. I Swiss. I 
is a lace-maker. Two year ago, dis summer, I go 
wid my father to live in Heidelberg, where he work 
on de castle repairs, an’ I make lace. It gay dere dat 
summer. Many strangers was dere, an’ I tink to 


AFTERWARt). 


make mticli money. We live in a leetle cottage, so 
small, like a bird’s nest, tree rooms, but enough. 
My heart was so light dat it seem as if no sorrow 
could touch it. I sing all day long. Dere come a 
young gentleman to our cottage, — so beautiful, so 
good, I tought. He lof me. I did not tink. It was 
a new life, higher, brighter dan Rosalia had ever 
tought could be, an’ I laugh an’ be happy, an’ go on 
all trough dat glad summer. An’ believe him ! 0, 
Madame, I believe him when he sdy sometime he 
make a lady of Rosalia, and den marry her. Cannot 
you understand, dear Madame? 

“Yes, Rosalia,” said Madeline, soothingly. 

“Den he offer to take me away from de cottage, 
cause my fader angry, so angry he would not speak 
to Rosalia. An’ I so proud of my sin because of my 
great love. O, Madame, that de fader was as 
though he had never been ! Den de Herr Carroll say 
he haf to go away when de summer gone, so far 
away, he say. I feel so bad. So he take me to Paris, 
an’ find me rooms an’ give me money, an’ promise to 
come back in two months. I wait five months, an’ 
never, never see him. Den I leave Paris, de heart 
breaking in my poor body, Madame, wid wishing. 
Tree month wid him made all de rest of life sad for 
Rosalia. De leetle child come before its time an’ die ; 
just live to die, Madame, an’ den I haf nothing but 
my lonesome heart.” 


AFTERWARD. 


247 


** Did he never write to you ? ** 

“Yes, tree times. Each letter shorter and shorter. 
Den dat silence! “ 

“Where was his home?’^ 

“I not sure. Sometime I tink in England, some- 
time I tink in America. He never tell me. He say he 
stonish me when he marry me, an’ till den I must 
trust him. 0, Madame, it is so bitter, so bitter here,” 
and she pressed her heart, “dat I trust him. At first 
I fraid to trust again, even you, Madame. 

“Madame, Ihafto tell you. I could not pray, I 
could not hope for forgiveness till I tell somebody. 
An’ I trust to you. Do not send me away.” 

“Rosalia, remember what our Lord said to the 
woman who was hunted by sinners like herself, * go 
and sin no more.’ How dare I say anything else ? ” 
She took Rosalia’s hand. It was a little hand, 
smaller than her own, and as she folded it between 
hers, and a smothered wail burst from her maid, her 
own heart cried out in sudden prayer as she thought 
of the multitude of forsaken and broken women all 
over the world, “How long, 0 Lord, how long 
must these things be?” 

She was no weak sentimentalist. She lay awake 
a long time that night, pondering on Rosalia’s story 
and wondering whether any material help could be 
procured for the girl. Suddenly she sat up in bed, 
a thought smiting her with dread. Rosalia had said 


248 


AFTERWARD. 


Mr. Carroll. Carroll was the name of Rebecca 
Saxby’s son, and Carroll Saxbj had left Heidelberg 
nearly two years ago. 

This was an absurdity, an irritating coincidence. 
Had not Rebecca written to her repeatedly of 
Carroll’s traveling companions, of their tributes to 
his manliness, of the commendatory letters from the 
university professors? An intrigue terminating in 
such weak cowardliness was altogether inconsistent 
with their reports. And yet — 

She fell into a troubled sleep, witb the persistent 
query coloring her dreams. When she awoke, the 
question returned with fresh force, and added to it 
was a feeling half a dream and half a desire, that 
they might encounter Carroll. This was not prob- 
able, however, as two days later would see them in 
Interlachen, where she proposed remaining till 
she started toward home, and Rebecca had written 
that Carroll’s travels would take him through Rus- 
sia, Norway and Sweden. 

In the morning Rosalia was dressed in her Canton 
costume. Her wavy chestnut hair was braided and 
coiled flat against her head, covering the back from 
ear to ear. Her white bodice and elbow sleeves, the 
intricate silver chains, the short black skirt laid in 
innumerable plaits from waist to hem, the black 
stockings and silver buckled $hoes transformed her, 
and gave a piquancy to her which revealed how 
pretty she might be if she had more vivacity. 


Ai TERWARD. 


249 


“If Madame willing, Rosalia go back to what she 
was. She be a Swiss peasant once more.” 

“That is wise, Rosalia.” 

They reached Interlachen in the midst of one of 
those drenching showers that so often overtake the 
traveler in Switzerland, and which shut out the land- 
scape as completely as if an ocean mist had suddenly 
settled down. They drove through the pretty town 
in a steaming stage, with nothing further to cheer 
them than the thud of the horses’ feet through the 
mud and the rain beating on the wooden roof above 
their heads. But all at once the shower was over. 
The vivid grass and foliage glistened in resplendent 
freshness. Great puffs of cloud sailed up the mountain 
sides. In the midst of an aromatic fragrance, the}’' 
dashed up a hill to a hotel standing at the footofthe 
Kleine Rugen. 

After taking rooms overlooking the valley, 
Madeline sat down a few minutes to enjoy the 
panorama before her. In the narrow valley at her 
feet, and far enough away not to disturb her idyllic 
quietness, was the little town, shaped like an eye- 
glass with a long handle, the quaint old part with 
its square and church forming the socket, and the 
long street of the new part, lined with hotels, the 
handle. To her left lay Lake Brienz, and to her right 
Lake Thun, and, towering in front of her but behind 
the town, the abrupt, grim, and lowering heights of 


250 


AFTERWARD. 


the Thiergebirge. It was a vantage-ground from 
which she could watch every mood of nature, and 
drink in new and healing draughts of faith. 

She had been questioning her possibilities in a 
solemn, incredulous way the past few days. She had 
been so long without ties, and yet there had come 
into her consciousness, all at once, a subtle, intangi- 
ble susceptibility to a new influence that had made 
itself powerfully if briefly felt. She was too mature 
not to understand every step of the ground she was 
treading. She had had too heart-breaking a past to 
willingly descend from the colder regions of thought 
and duty. Would she not be very culpable to trust 
herself in the slightest to impulse — to intuition? 
And yet what were the intuitions of a woman of 
thirty-seven but conclusions accurately, if instantly, 
drawn from all her eyes had seen, her ears had heard, 
her mind had thought, her heart had felt, during the 
experiences of half an ordinary life-time? What was 
life, so much of it as she had lived, worth, its joy or 
its sorrow, if one could not judge of individuals with- 
out credentials which would be absolutely valueless 
in the affairs of everyday life ? 

Well, she would wait. Perhaps the possibility 
even of intimate acquaintance would dissolve into 
thin air like yonder cloud scaling the mountain side. 
But, with this fancy, came the vision of Mark Dascom 
as he looked when she lifted her eyes from the rose- 


afterward. 


251 


tree m Florence. He was a persistent force, demand- 
ing incorporation into her life. “ Certainly he under- 
stands himself, but I — do I not understand myself 
also? I believe I will leave Interlachen shortly/’ 
she said, half aloud, as she rang for dinner. “It 
could be no child’s play, and — I am afraid.” 

After a night’s sleep her equanimity was restored^ 
and this seemed, all things taken into consideration, 
the great essential of her life. This is a tame happi- 
ness to those whose innermost depths have not been 
profoundly and protractedly stirred, but its attain- 
ment and continuance are the bliss of theQuietist. To 
some it is but a transition which they never recognize 
while they are in it. 

She simply did not think of Mark Dascom for days. 
She refused to do it. While an acquaintance merely 
suggests but does not yet fulfill deeper relations, this 
is possible. With the banishment of him from her 
thought, his coming seemed an event of weeks and 
perhaps months ahead. 

So she gave herself up to long walks with Rosalia, 
climbing the steep sides of the Thiergebirge till the 
whole magnificent valley lay far below, wandering 
along the banks of the green and rushing Aar from 
lake to lake, studying the motley, forced growth on 
the conical, isolated Rugen, and occasionally going 
off two or three days at a time on some exciting but 
fatiguing expedition that enforced rest for a period 
just m long. 


252 


AFl'ERWARD. 


With her shawl spread out on some lofty, grassy 
plateau, the spicy winds whistling and rustling per- 
petually, a book only the pretext for rambling 
thoughts or a half-waking sleep in which every sense, 
however, was so at rest that even her dreams took 
no defined shape, she spent many an apparently idle 
morning, but gathered strength and brownness and 
a humanness that linked her more and more to 
ordinary people. The minutia of life began to interest 
her. Humanity ceased to be a mass and became 
individualized again. We are in a very sorry condi- 
tion indeed, when the multitudinous varieties of men 
and women on each one of whom God has put some 
special stamp of his infiniteness, become one to our 
dulled faculties. We need to withdraw, even if it be 
into a desert, in order to come back to a right view 
of the highest of His creatures. 

Weeks passed. August, with its shortening days 
and incessant showers and cooler nights, came. Still 
she lingered, for while she stayed in that mountain 
valley, the old life with its troubles seemed mythical. 
As soon as she turned her face to the West, a future 
under the conditions of her youth, but with years of 
experience that cut off all possibilities of its glamor, 
became a fact. Nevertheless, she would not wait 
much longer. 

A day, phenomenally fair, in which, the heavens 
hung so high and clear that it seemed as if even the 


AFTERWARD. 


253 


air must have been swept away, and following, as it 
did, a week of cold and rain and fog, chanced to be 
the one set for their departure. 

“We cannot go to-day, Rosalia. To-morrow, 
surely! But we shall want this golden day to be the 
last in our memory of Interlachen. 

“I think I will go down into the town to make a 
few purchases. I have no souvenirs of this pretty 
place. You shall go with me, and vselect something 
for yourself that you would like to take to 
America.” 

Rosalia had the fair complexion that becomes 
brown with exposure. But, notwithstanding she 
was dark, the old color flowed back and forth 
through her cheeks, the weeks of open air had deep- 
ened the violet hue of her large eyes, her teeth were 
as pretty, and yet the old play of happy expression 
was gone. Her bloom had been like that of one of 
the blossoms of her native Alpine heights, surpass- 
ingl}’’ fair while it lasted, but brief. 

Madeline was far more content with her than if she 
had been like one of the beauties who sit making lace 
in front of the shops, their blonde locks uncovered, 
their pretty ankles crossed below their short skirts, 
their forget-me-not eyes lifted and lowered perpetu- 
ally before the strangers who admire them one 
instant and pass them by the next. 


254 


AFTERWAR®. 


Rosalia was patient, but she was unreconciled. 
Madeline felt a great pity for her. She had learned 
to love her. The mistress after a while realized that 
her maid’s pain was like a tormented nerve, that 
dies, after a slow agony, because of its very wounds. 
Time, and God’s mercy, and daily kindness would 
have to do lor her what they could, gradually and in 
silence. 

They were a characteristic pair as they left the 
hotel and descended a steep path inclosed in a bower 
of flowers and overhanging foliage. They walked in 
silence, each busy with her own thoughts. They 
came presently to a long stretch of meadow inter- 
sected by walks in every direction, but divided by a 
broad avenue skirted with fine lindens, beneath 
which seats were placed at intervals. 

‘*We will sit down a few minutes,” said Madeline. 

Rosalia drew her knitting from her pocket, 
lowered the brim of her hat over her eyes a little, 
and pursued her work with habitual demureness and 
gravity. Madeline looked out over the quiet scene, 
so still at that hour that hardly a bird uttered a 
note, glanced forward to the walnut avenue that in 
the afternoon would be thronged with saunterers, 
then up at the line of near mountains on either side, 
that gave one the impression that this minute valley 
with its lofty boundaries was the world, and then, 
finally, reverently, to that majestic pinnacle in its 


AFTERWARD. 


255 


virgin whiteness that, through all the summer 
months, had shone in mystic splendor in its frame of 
blue and green, like a gigantic throne for God himself. 
The Jungfrau at all hours called forth her sponta- 
neous adoration. 

B}" and by the sound of approaching voices broke 
the stillness. Madeline glanced idly down the ave- 
nue, and saw, still in the distance, a man and woman 
coming toward them. She watched them as one 
will for want of something better to do, as they ap- 
proached, and then with a mild interest, for the 
lady was extremely pretty and animated. 

Her eyes suddenly dilated, for she recognized Carroll 
Saxby, although she had not seen him in several 
years. If he looked over at them, she would speak, 
but otherwise — well, there were years before her in 
which to speak to a great many — and yet, it would 
be only kind^to Rebecca. The ugly query concerning 
Rosalia flashed into her mind. She glanced at her 
maid, who was still knitting. She felt an almost 
cowardly relief. Perhaps Rosalia would not look up. 

But, while she was thinking thus, a gay, rollick- 
ing, uncontrollable laugh burst from him, over some- 
thing his pretty companion had said. 

The knitting dropped from Rosalia’s fingers. She 
looked up ; stood up ; a pitiful whiteness about her 
lips, the eager, strained longing in her eye of some 


256 


AFTERWARD. 


homesick, pet dog that has lost its master. Her 
heavy little figure trembled with excitement. 

Now they were opposite, but Carroll’s head was 
bent over to hear something that his companion 
was saying; then another gay laugh rang through 
the air — they were past! He had not even looked at 
her I 

She cast one mute, dumb look of stifled despair at 
Madeline. 

“Poor lamb — poor lamb I ’’said Madeline. “Listen. 
I will send a messenger to the difterent hotels to find 
this man. He shall see you, Rosalia.’’ 

“No, oh, no, Madame! Of what use! I have seen 
him. He is not unhappy.’’ 

“Perhaps he is, Rosalia.” 

But she shook her head. “Rosalia has seen 
enough. No use; no use here!” She pressed her 
hand against her heart. ^ 

“Be strong, Rosalia. Forget him.” 

“I can’t, Madame.” 

Madeline felt the utter powerlessness of philoso^ 
phy in a case of this kind. Even religion was not 
the same solace that it could be to a heart that had 
many phases of human tenderness with which to 
liken divine love. 


N 


CHAPTER V. 


ROSALIA. 

On reaching her rooms Madeline dismissed Rosalia 
for the day. “She will have to weep it out, poor 
thing, for herself. I wish we had left this morning,” 
were her thoughts, as she sat down to reflect on 
Rebecca. 

What was her duty in a case like this ? To sepa- 
rate Rosalia from herself was to add fresh grief to a 
heart already sorely stricken. It was impossible, on 
the other hand, to take her maid into Rebecca’s 
home. She felt in a sad quandary. Then there was 
this other disagreeable question behind these. Had 
she any responsibility to Carroll ? 

She got up and went to Rosalia, whom she found 
about to go out again. 

“I can’t stay in, Madame Winchester. Perhaps 
de mountains will say a word of comfort to Rosalia. 
I must go out and get tired, Madame.” 

“Stay as long as you wish, Rosalia.” 

17 357 


258 


AFTERWARD. 


Early in the afternoon, Madeline went out also, 
to wander among the walks and woods of the 
Kleine Rugen. The hill possessed a peculiar charm 
for her. 

She came at length on a granite bowlder jutting 
far over the valley below — so far below that the 
grass looked like a vast velvet cloth, beyond which 
the hills folded into one another as if in sympathetic 
nearness. No sound broke the air except the multi- 
tudinous but distant and dreamy tinkle of the cow 
bells. Over all loomed the Jungfrau, like an eternal 
altar. 

She stepped to the verge of the precipice. Two 
eagles whirred from a tree close at hand, and cleft 
the blue depths higher and higher, till her dazzled 
sight could follow them no longer. It was a moment 
when she had an absolute, solemn conviction of the 
supremacy of mind and spirit. She clasped her hands 
in an involuntary prayer to have her thoughts, her 
aspirations and her life kept as unfettered as those 
eagles that soared aloft, because the air and altitude 
suited their common need. 

She was a woman of commandingheight and noble 
proportions, but, if she had been the smallest woman 
on the face of the earth with the frailest body with 
which such a woman could be endowed, she would 
have smiled in contempt at the fallacy that the 


AFTERWARD. 


259 


amount and force of matter in a human being, of the 
earth, earthy, should limit freedom of both action 
and thought. 

She knew, and appreciated as a necessity, that 
much of the seclusion which had always environed 
women was the guard placed around them by good 
men to save them from bad ones. But, alas ! how 
f<?udal it made civilization! As the vassals of the 
middle ages were warned to be within doors at their 
peril at nightfall, so women feared the darkness and 
the solitude because still for them “the times are 
very evil.^’ 

Would the time ever come when women, for the 
sake of the purity of unborn generations, could make 
laws proportionate to the bondage their physical 
weakness had been under, because the greatest of all 
possible crimes against humanity, socially organized, 
had been too lightly sentenced by men ? 

As she stood there in that pure air, like some 
prophet of old who had sought the mountains and 
the solitudes for clearer visions, a mass of womanish 
fears and sentimental cpieries which had disturbed 
her peace in plans for the future, disappeared for- 
ever. 

Months before she had reached the conclusion that 
a woman may do what she can. Now she framed a 
second conclusion; that, given time and opportunity, 
women m ay do what they will. 


260 


AFTERWARD. 


She returned to the hotel with a triumphant sense 
of grace and enlargement. She had gained a new 
belief. A brighter light shone within her. She was 
a little larger, a little broader than she had ever 
been before. It had been a golden day to her, after 
all. It was Rosalia’s sorrow that had given her 
enlargement. In how many ways it is true, she 
thought, that “the whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth in pain, waiting, to-wit, for the redemp- 
tion of the creature.” Rosalia had helped her. 
Somewhere in the endless sequence of events must 
there not be help for Rosalia? “Alas!” thought 
Madeline, “the clearing up of one mystery only 
makes the myriads swarming behind it visible. 
There must indeed be an eternity.” 

When Rosalia left the hotel she wandered mechan- 
ically back to the spot where she had seen Carroll. 
It looked just the same, only so solitary. She 
went on. 

Presently she came in front of one of the large 
hotels. A carriage drawn by four horses, as many 
people sitting inside, a pile of trunks strapped on 
behind, swept out of the drive and upon the broad 
avenue shaded by magnificent walnuts. 

One of the men was Carroll Saxby, sitting with his 
back to the driver. 

Rosalia leaned against the bole of one of the great 
trees and watched. Her fascinated ga^e was 
agonized. 


AFTERWARD. 


201 


Carroll glanced along the promenade as the cai- 
riage rolled gently on ; his eyes met hers. He looked 
conscience stricken and angry. As the distance 
increased between them, he turned his gaze away. 
In another minute he was out of sight. 

A sick pain swept over her. She sat down and sat 
very still; that was all. She knew the meaning of 
that departing vehicle. He had gone — gone for good 
from Interlachen. Well, to-morrow she would be 
gone, too. 

She got up and walked on again, and now all the 
pictures of those months with him in Heidelberg and 
Paris surged through her brain. She walked part of 
the time with her eyes shut. The sun felt hot ; yet 
she shivered. By and by she came to the river. 
There was a fine bridge spanning it. She crossed 
half way, and then leaned on the parapet and looked 
over. How the water rushed under the bridge — 
milky green, and curling and rippling, but making so 
little noise. It must be very deep and very cold, she 
thought, and she shivered again and went on. Where 
could she go ? What could she do to stop the sink- 
ing misery that drove her forward and made her 
weak at the same time ? 

There was a narrow path threading the opposite 
side of the stream, and it looked white and warm in 
the sunshine unbroken by the shade of a single tree. 
She would go there and get warm. There were 


262 


AFTERWARD. 


women in the meadow beyond the path, raking the 
scant cutting of grass. They were women of her own 
kind. How glad she would be to be in the field rak- 
ing hay if her heart were light ! 

She reached the path. How good the sunshine 
'elt. It was a straight path, and even, and after a 
while she shut her aching lids again and conjured up 
the face she loved, going on and on, further and 
further away. Her steps wavered with the faintness 
that sickened her. But she could think better, see 
better, if she walked. If she stopped, she could not 
think at all. 

Presently she stepped into the grass on one side; 
then she started into the path again ; a half dozen 
steps would take her to the middle. She thought she 
saw the path, but her eyes were closed still. 0, that 
face that she had kissed — had caressed wdth her 
hands! On she walked, still nearer and nearer the 
water’s edge. Then, all at once, her wavering feet 
stepped off the path, the swift Aar curled over and 
around her. Her clutching hand could gain no hold 
of the walled bank. The hard, smooth stones cut it, 
that was all, as she sank and drifted on. The agony 
of that interminable summer day grew less and less. 
Her tired little brain stopped thinking. Her fancy 
left its cruel roamings. 

On she drifted, a black and white mass on the 
smooth, rushing water. So many people near, and 


AFTERWARD. 


263 


yet no one to see her. The women were bent over 
their rakes. The gay world was on the other side of 
the river, out of sight and sound of its waters. By 
and by her skirts caught on the wires of a duck weir, 
a half mile from the spot where she had fallen in. 
There, an hour later, they found her, the water rock- 
ing her back and forth and up and down. 

The brilliant afternoon, so cool and exhilarating 
on the Kleine Rugen, so hot and depressing along 
the Aar, came to an end. The sun went down in a 
blaze of golden light, flaming up in white and red- 
tipped clouds behind the mountains. 

Madeline sat on the terrace overlooking Lake 
Thun, loth to go inside. She felt at peace. Life was 
once more a boon. It was luxury to walk up and 
down the commanding terrace, breathing the sweet 
air, watching the last glimmer of daylight on the 
distant water. 

She thought of Mark Dascom. He had not come, 
after all. Something had detained him, she was 
sure. Their acquaintance was not one for letters. 
Was she glad that he had not come? Neither glad 
nor sorry, and yet she was as conscious of the mean- 
ing of this quiescent mood as the fire- worshiper is of 
the living, breathing glow that creeps up and down 
the pores of a stick of wood — not fire until it 
bursts forth, but a vital light bound sooner or later 
to become leaping, triumphant fire. She knew that 


264 


A-FTEKWARi). 


this change had to come to her if she met him many 
times. Perhaps it did not belong to her future, 
though, to meet him. He thought it did. Well, he 
might be mistaken. 

The light faded almost entirely. The illuminated 
hotel looked cheery. The sound of the stage with 
the evening passengers became audible. 

She stood off at one side watching the passengers 
alight. One after another descended. Finally a tall 
man, bending as he walked the length of the low- 
roofed vehicle, got out, drew himself up, looked 
around for a second, and, instead of entering like 
the others, waved the porter inside with his hand 
luggage, and advanced toward Madeline. 

She had a momentary feeling of dismay. Then she 
stepped forward a little way, held out her hand and 
said: 

Welcome to the Yungfrau, Mr. Dascom.” 
caught her friendly glance as we came through 
the valley. I am more delighted to receive yours, 
however. What a charming spot this is ! ** 

They walked toward the park together. 

“Have you been here all summer? 

“Yes; but I leave to-morrow ! ” 

“To-morrow! 

“Yes; I had expected to go this morning, but 
waited a day over. So to-morrow I must be off.’^ 


A.It<'TEKWARO. 


265 


He looked at her with an odd expression for a sec- 
ond. “I am sorry you are going so soon,” he said 
simply. Then he turned toward the office while she 
went to the reading-room. 

Later, when they were seated at a little table in 
a secluded corner, he said : 

“I must tell you some1:hing strange. I went to 
Thun this morning by appointment, but found a 
telegram in place of my friend. So I came here to- 
day instead of to-morrow.” 

“Is your friend to meet you here?” 

“ He is not to meet me at all, now. I came here to 
see you, as I said I would.” 

“Did you fully expect to meet me here so late in 
the season ” 

“As I came at the very first moment I could, I did. 
You think this is a superstition, I suppose.” 

“Nothing so grave as that — a fancy. 

“Well, we woiiT discuss it, since I have met you,— 
and here.” 

“You are not a clairvoyant, I hope? ” 

“Nothing of the kind. And I have never seen a 
ghost or dreamed a true dream. Yet I so fully ex- 
pected to meet you in Interlachen, that I looked for 
you from the moment I entered the town, — and found 
you. The actuality is sufficient. Do n^t let us try to 
explain it.” 


266 


AFTERWARD. 


She would have liked to say, Your mind is so full 
of me, that you looked for me everywhere, where 
there was the vaguest possible chance of seeing me.^^ 
But as that would be admitting more than she cared 
to do, she sat still. 

Their conversation kept on common-place levels, 
by her intention and effort, and he found her charm- 
ing in the ease with which she sustained both sides 
whenever he made a resolute effort to be more per- 
sonal. 

A common-place woman is as fascinating under 
certain circumstances as one who lives on the 
heights is under others, and a woman who is many 
sided possesses the charm of the unexpected which is 
as perpetual a refreshment to adults as to children. 

An orchestra was playing in the public grounds 
down in the valley. The sound ascended dreamily 
on the still air, as they went out on the terrace and 
paced up and down in the white moonlight. 

“Which way do you go to-morrow, Mrs. Win- 
chester?’’ 

“ By way of Geneva, to Paris.” 

“When do you sail?” 

“I do not quite know.” 

“In October?” 

“Perhaps; perhaps a little later.” 

“I suppose you will go by way of Liverpool? ” 


AFTERWARD. 


267 


“I am entirely undecided, Mr. Dascom. I have 
Rosalia still, whom I presume I shall take with me, 
and — by the way, I wonder where she is. I have 
not seen her since early this afternoon. The poor 
thing was made very unhappy this morning and I 
dismissed her for the day. But she ought to have 
presented herself by this time.” She looked inad- 
vertently toward the hotel. As she did so, she saw 
the proprietor come to the wide doorway, gaze 
anxiously up and down, and then start toward her. 
They went to meet him. 

“Ah, Mees Winchester. It is one thousand peeties, 
but your maid — de leetle Swiss — ” 

“Rosalia? What has happened?” She laid her 
hand on Mark’s arm involuntarily. 

“Her is drownded — drownded in de Aar. Dey 
have carried her to de convent. Perhaps it is not 
her!” and the proprietor clasped his hands and 
smiled a little consolingly as he saw Madeline’s agi- 
tation. “It may be all one sad mistake, Madame.” 

But Madeline shook her head. “ Will you ha ve a 
carriage called for me, immediately? ” 

Certainement, Madame.” The kind German 
waited for further orders. 

“That is all.” She stood motionless an instant as 
the man turned away.- There was a tremulous, 
white look about her lips, as she said to Mark, “Will 
you go with me? ” 


268 


A.FTERWARI> 


He never forgot her quick, gliding motion or her 
pathetic, anxious face as she hastened to the hotel 
and disappeared up the stairs. She came down, 
presently, saying softly, with a kind of frightened 
dismay : 

“She is not upstairs, I know it is my poor 
Rosalia.^* 

The night was chilly. She had wrapped a thick 
white vshawl about her shoulders, and this, with her 
white dress and the white wrap thrown over her 
head, made her look almost angelic. Her colorless 
face and great, starry eyes, the shiver which ran 
through her whole frame as Mark assisted her into 
the carriage and took his place beside her, were piti- 
ful. He would have given worlds to breathe some 
tender, comforting, endearing word. 

The night was very still. Two or three times the 
dew from over-hanging branches fell on their faces. 
Suddenly Madeline uttered a shivering little sob, and 
then drew herself up forcibly. 

“Why don^t you cry, Mrs. Winchester?^' said 
Mark gently. 

“0, it will do no good ! ” but^ she covered her face 
with her hands and the hot tears fell through her 
fingers. “It is a cruel world — cruel to poverty and 
ignorance. Poor Rosalia! " 

She sobbed anew as she thought of the sturdy little 
figure and the helpless passion in the round face, of 


AFTERWARD. 


269 


the needless misery and shame, and wanton selfish- 
ness that had ruined the simple life, and for a second 
including all men in her condemnation, she withdrew 
further into her corner of the wide seat. 

Mark understood in a flash the whole story and 
her thoughts. He involuntarily lifted hi^ eyes; 
through the gloom, rose the majestic white-robed 
mountain. 

^‘She is as inaccessible as yonder Jungfrau,*^ he 
said to himself in dismay. Suddenly, by some 
strange, subtle, electric inflow of irrepressible tender- 
ness, he leaned over, and, putting his arm behind her, 
said : 

Trust me! ” 

She turned to him abruptly, the moon-light 
clearly showing her troubled face. “So many men 
are untrue to the most sacred rights of women. Poor 
Rosalia! ” 

“God forgive him who wrought her misery,^' said 
Mark, fervently; “for such sin I cannot forgive! ” 

She gazed into his face with an appealing, clinging 
questioning, as if she would fathom the depths of his 
whole life. 

The moon was riding above the mountains, and 
the white light revealed his clear, honest, solemn 
eyes, his tender, reverent, insistent gaze. 

She held out her hand, and he took it, her fingers 
closing around his for a second. She had given him 


270 


AFTERWARD. 


her confidence. Withdrawing her hand she sat back, 
and became lost in thought. 

They did not talk any further till they reached the 
convent. It was a rambling, sorry building sur- 
rounded by a large garden shut in with grim, cement 
walls. • 

A sister admitted them, her dingy black and her 
aged face harmonizing with the staid, bare room 
into which she ushered them. Presently another nun 
entered and, announcing herself as Sister Antonio, 
asked if they had come to see the drowned woman. 

^^Yes,” said Madeline, rising, and trembling per- 
ceptibly. The vaguest hope excited her that, per- 
haps, after all, it w^as not Rosalia. 

“Take my arm, Mrs. Winchester.’^ 

She accepted Mark’s proffer. They followed 
Sister Antonio down a long, grim, desolate passage, 
through a low-ceiled, dimly lighted refeetory, into 
what appeared to be a kind of kitehen office. 

Sister Antonio left them there a few minutes; 
finally a third nun appeared, who led them through 
another series of rooms to a small chamber. A 
board, covered with a sheet, underneath a window 
through which the cool air was blowing, told them 
that at last they were in the presence of the dead. 

A half dozen men and women were sitting vacant- 
eyed and still around the room. 


AFTERWARD. 


271 


Madeline shuddered as she stood beside that cov- 
ered form. 

She lifted the sheet. Yes, there was Rosalia ! There 
was the round face, so pallid now. There were the 
blue eyes, without sight or longing, half open, their 
very lifelessness more terrible than the most passion- 
ate regret. There was the chestnut hair clustering in 
many ringlets around the childish forehead. There 
were the little hands, sun-burned but shapely. 

“ Poor child ! Poor Rosalia ! ” She sank down on 
the stone floor, laying her face upon the cold bosom, 
and wept. 

Something hard rested against her cheek. She saw 
a loop of gold chain barely visible above the white 
waist, as she half-lifted her head. She drew out the 
chain ; a locket was attached to it. She opened it, 
while still kneeling. Inside was Carroll Saxby^s 
picture. 

She saw at a glance the irresolution of the beauti- 
ful face. “Ah, there lies the fatal defect!” she 
thought, as she unclasped the locket and put it in her 
pocket. It was not a bad face; only a weak, lovable 
one. But the consequences to Rosalia had been 
worse, doubtless, than they would have been had it 
been essentially vicious and weak. 

The thought of the lookers-on recalled her to her- 
self. She rose, brushing the tears away, and passed 
outside alone with Sister Antonio. Having heard 


272 


AFTERWARD. 


all there was to tell, which was sadly meager, she 
gave the necessary directions, briefly but with a lov- 
ing attention to details that filled the nun’s 
repressed but aflectionate nature with wondering 
admiration. 

She cried gently, all the way back to her hotel. 


CHAPTER VI. 


AN UNDERSTANDING. 

They laid Rosalia in a churchyard encircling a 
grim old structure, as if with its rank grass and 
matted ivy it would redeem the barrenness and 
gloom of the exterior. But the grass and ivy and 
flowering plants could avail little, when, in every 
direction there rose above the graves slender black 
crosses with staring brass medallions which read 
with uniform monotony, “Here rests in God — ” 

The grave was made under the shadow of a monu- 
ment held against the church by grappling irons, as 
if the dead outside would fain encroach on the living 
within. On the summit of the stately memorial was 
a crown and below this a shield, while leaning out 
from one side was a skeleton of Death, whose grin- 
ning jaws and eyeless sockets seemed to take in at 
once the tomb it guarded and the humble, nameless 
mound that covered Rosalia. 

Mark had remained with Madeline during the two 
days that had elapsed, and now, after the burial, 
was alone with her in this quaint God’s acre, 

18 273 


274 


AFTERWARD. 


He had attended to so many matters for her, qui- 
etly and efficiently, and, while constantly at her side, 
had not in any way obtruded upon her attention. 

She felt his care, his kindness, and his silence, 
deeply, for, in losing Rosalia, she had lost a faithful 
friend. She looked at him occasionally with unspoken 
thankfulness. 

How could he help regarding Rosalia’s translation 
as his golden opportunity? While she lingered 
among those lonely graves with that feeling we all 
have that the dead are as desolate as their resting- 
places, thinking lovingly of the many unreljuired 
attentions the little Swiss had shown her, and com- 
mitting unconsciously, anew, to the mercies of a 
tender God, Rosalia’s frailties, sorrow, and repent- 
ance, Mark saw the brightness of the summer day, 
and the peace of a future that seemed more possible 
than ever. Like all mature people who have learned 
patience with years, he felt that time, more or less, 
mattered little. Madeline’s faith in him would 
awaken her love. 

“Come away now, Mrs. Winchester. Rosalia is 
not here. If you take that long journey to-morrow, 
you will need to harbor your strength. You are 
very pale.” 

“I do not feel tired. I have such a thirsty craving 
for this fresh air. I will walk back. Activity is my 
solace for nearly every sorrow.” 


AFTERWARD. 


276 


‘‘That is a matins comfort, too. How did you find 
it out?” 

“Most women with a nervous organization have 
to find it out in sheer self-defense. I have been years 
in schooling myself to the immediate exercise of it, as 
soon as I feel the need.” 

“You mean to say, then, that you do not particu- 
larly care to walk back, but that you think it the 
proper thing to do.” 

“About that, yes.” 

“Suppose, instead, you step into this victoria, and 
let me go with you for a drive along the lake. The 
drive will give you the fresh air, too.” 

“I think yours is a better plan,” she said, smiling, 
as she stepped into the low carriage. 

It seemed the most natural thing in the world that 
they two should be alone together, side by side, as 
only two persons can feel alone in a strange land. 
The sense of both the isolation and companionship 
was pleasant to Madeline, as they bowled through 
the town and out upon the gentle ascent leading to 
the shore of Lake Brienz. The afternoon boat was 
puflSng down the lake. From time to time they 
passed parties of travelers who had come over the 
Brunig pass. But, during the greater part of their 
ride, they were as secluded as if this paradise had 
been made for them, for often there was little else 


276 


AFTERWARD. 


to indicate the nearness of the work of man exce{)t 
the magnificent roadway following closely the curve 
of the lake. 

“Mrs. Winchester,’^ said Mark, after much genera 
conversation which had kept them both at ease, “I 
want to ask a great favor of you.” 

She looked up a little incisively. There was neither 
sentiment nor fear in his face. 

“ Well? ” she said gently. 

“I expect to go from here to London, where I shalL 
remain several weeks. Will you do me the kindness 
to write to me there, telling me on what steamer 
you sail, as soon as your decision is made? ” 

She sat still. Was he getting tired of letting their 
acquaintance progress at the eas^Tntervals that had 
hitherto marked it ? She was perfectly willing, so 
far as the mere journey was concerned, to sail at the 
same time with him, but, it might make a difference 
if he were going to remain in New York. 

“Do you expect to pass the winter on the other 
side? ” she asked. 

“Yes.” 

“At your sister’s ? ” 

“Near my sister’s. Naturally, I want to see much 
of her and Blanche, my neice.” 

Madeline drew into herself perceptibly. It made 
no difference whether Mrs. Allerton crossed her path, 
except as that lady did so through Mark. That she 


AFTERWA&D. 


277 


Would do this was certain, if they were all in New 
York. This dread of social friction was a cowardly 
thing. She had no mean fear of Mrs. Allerton's 
anger or superciliousness, only she wished to avoid 
the consciousness of them as facts. 

Mark was more than willing to have the whole 
matter settled either for or against himself in the 
presence of the social world that has, it is true, done 
Madeline no other wrong than simply to forget her — 
a small wrong on the surface, until we remember 
that social ostracism to a woman is as bad as expa- 
triation to a man. His pride in her and love for her 
made this feeling a matter of course. This was his 
simple thought, clear as crystal to himself. He be- 
lieved that Madeline must understand that even her 
friendship meant more to him than the love of any 
other woman. 

She understood nothing of the kind. She believed 
that he felt aggravatingly sure of his ground with 
her, and would accept the conditions of her life as 
disagreeable though inevitable facts. When a man 
is either a lover or a husband, she thought, a 
woman’s life takes on a multitude of merely social 
relations which she can either accept or reject as she 
chooses, if a widow or single. As Mark Dascom’s 
wife, her old society life would have, to some extent, 
to be renewed. It would be time enough when and 
if she married him, to come face to face with people 


278 


AJ^TERWARD. 


whom she would otherwise be glad to forget to all 
intents and purposes. If sbe did not marry him, an 
intimate acquaintance with him made a disagreeable 
combination of circumstances for him also. She sat 
still so long that he finally said, almost appealingly : 

‘‘Have you forgotten to answer me? ” 

She glanced at him with troubled indecision. “I 
am considering your comfort, Mr. Dascom.” 

*‘My comfort! ** he exclaimed in amazement. “ You 
do not need to consider me! ** The very thought of 
har consideration, however, made him linger over the 
words. 

“Your social comfort. You would know me so 
well by the time we had crossed together, that we 
should inevitably be warm friends or enemies. Now, 
if we were friends, as my friend, you would con_ 
stantly come in contact with people who would 
wonder at your taste. Socially, the misfortune of m v 
past life will amount with many to a crime. I am so 
tired of these infinitesimally small considerations, 
that for myself, the old life which you, however, 
must consider, has no charms. With me as your 
friend, you would be in open warfare with half your 
relatives, certainly with Mrs. Allerton, and I am 
thinking that it is not worth your while. “ 

Mark looked at her in dumb astonishment. What 
di Terence did it make to him if all New York rose up 
in judgment. He knew what he wanted. A man 


AFTERWARD. 


279 


who lives in many places finds it impossible to be 
bound even in thought to the utilitarian proprieties 
of any one. For a man like himself to lore a woman 
like Madeline was to have such a supremvg sense of 
her goodness and beauty and fitness for the best in 
life, that it was inconceivable to him that her pride 
should be even vaguely touched with the considera- 
tions she had mentioned. 

‘‘Mrs. Winchester, ’Mie said, finally, turning around 
in the carriage, and looking at her in surprise and 
reproof, “ so far as I am concerned we are friends, 
and have been friends for many months. I have such 
a sense of being honored by your mere acquaintance 
and such profound respect for you as. a woman, and 
such assurance of the value that your friendship 
would be to me, that I simply cannot understand 
how you can lay such stress on extraneous matters. 
What you have said, moreover, is an assumption of 
motives and thoughts which I could never entertain. 
I thought you would take for granted my absolute 
pride in our acquaintance.^’ 

A hot flush of shame sent the blood back to her 
heart. A blinding, sudden consciousness smote her 
that she loved this man — loved him supremely, or 
she could never have suffered for him in anticipation, 
as she had years ago ceased to suffer for herself. He 
was right, and she was wrong. She had committed 
an unnecessary and an intrinsically ignoble act of 


280 


A-FTERWARb. 


self abnegation. For her, Madeline Winchester, who 
believed she had risen superior to all mere prejudice, 
to set the judgment of the fickle, volatile world be- 
fore anyone whom she might take into the sanctity of 
friendship or love! His words swept her morbid and 
unworthy illusions away forever. 

“I was placing you before a lower tribunal than I 
would be willing to be judged by. We will appear 
only before the supreme court of each other’s good 
opinion henceforth. I will send you word of the 
steamer.’* 

Her eyes were shining and conciliatory, her lips 
were trembling with the emotion she was trying to 
conceal. 

Mark smiled and bowed in reply. An expression 
so kind, so gentle, and so noble suffused his face, such 
a serene contentment animated his manner, that she 
insensibly partook of it. 

They drove on in silence. The sun sank below the 
nearer mountains. The steep banks of the lake kept 
them in deep shade and coolness. 

When they entered Interlachen the lamps were 
lighted, a few stars sprinkled the sky, and a coldness 
pervading the air told that autumn was near. 

Although she was outwardly so entirely alone, 
Madeline felt neither loneliness nor homelessness, as 
she finished her preparations for departure at a late 
hour that evening. 


CHAPTER VII. 


FPOM T.IVERPOOI. to new YORK. 

When Madeline reached Paris, the brightness and 
gaiety of the city, instead of irritating, delighted her 
The movement of the streets, the brilliancy of the 
windows, and the long walks she took morning and 
afternoon, so beguiled her time and attention that 
she stayed on indefinitely. Life was sweet. Living 
in Paris was so bright and soft and comfortable 
that September glided into October before she left for 
London. 

There, sooner or later, she would meet Mark, or at 

least hear from him. During the six weeks since she 

had seen him, her thoughts had rested on him and in 

liim with great gladness and confidence. The delight 

of absolute trust once more in the good purposes and 

character of a friend, when a man or woman has 

been for a long time friendless and proudly and 

utterly self reliant, is a blessed experience. She found 
281 


282 


AFTERWARD. 


that she could drive away the shadows of the past 
whenever they threatened to gather by the thought 
of Mark. 

So it happened that, though she walked and drove 
alone, and was hours* out-of-doors or in crowds, 
that nevertheless she walked with him and drove 
with him and never felt lonely, and would have 
found any other companion an intruder. 

When she took the train for London, she felt as if 
she were going to him, and yet she had no intention 
of seeing him, unless they chanced to meet, till it was 
time to sail. Impatience and the hurrying of events 
had passed out of her life. She had paid a bitter 
penalty for this intense inner quietness, but that 
strange compensation which comes to all naturally 
buoyant and self-poised natures, when they are lov- 
ingly intent upon the higher issues of living, left her 
not sorry that her pathway had been exactly the one 
she had trodden. 

There was no maidenly timidity in her affection for 
Mark Dascom. There need be no flutter of uncertain 
suspense about his feeling. That had been declared 
from the beginning, and it belonged to his singular 
dignity and transparency combined to make such a 
tacit avowal natural and becoming. As to awk- 
wardness with herself in this transition, that also 
was impossible. She had passed beyond the stage of 
awkwardness, even in love. We have to experience 


AFTERWARD. 


283 


many deep secrets of maturity before we can even 
lia ve the proper wisdom to be childlike. She knew 
that she would accept him as naturally as he would 
give verbal expression to his love when the time came. 
And this late blossoming of a new life and purpose 
was no untimely growth, but a second fruitage due 
to rich soil and favorable conditions. It was not 
necessarily less sweet or marvelous in its transform- 
ing power because there had been a spring-time. An 
occasional late bloom only serves to point the rich- 
ness of a season in which bloom is universal. 

In London, the weeks passed much as they had in 
Paris. Only the fogs shut down over the great city; 
the massive buildings with their streaks of velvet- 
black soot in all the cracks and crevices loomed 
funereally through the grayness and dampness when 
there were light and rifts enough through the fog to 
make even a short distance visible. Neither the fog 
nor the dampness depressed her. The rains had no 
more deterring influence over her than over an 
English woman. Morning and afternoon she was 
out. The cool autumn days, if they gave no color to 
her cheeks, rounded them a little and quickened her 
elastic step. 

It was November before she could decide on her 
sailing. A letter from Rebecca, urging an immediate 
return and insisting that Madeline should spend the 
winter with her, hastened the decision. 


A^‘i"ERVVAkl>. 


284 

She laid Rebecca’s letter down, after thinking a few 
minutes, and, putting on her bonnet and cloak, went 
to the steamship office. She selected her state-room 
for the third Saturday in the month. On reaching 
home, she wrote to Mark'. There were three weeks 
still. Should she see him in the interval? No, it was 
better to lead her free life — alone, 3 ^et not alone — till 
they met in Liverpool, and then — then the tide 
should take its course. She would oppose no barrier 
of either reticence or withdrawal. 

She wrote to him, accordingly, that she would sail 
on the 2 — , and that it would be convenient for her 
not to see him again till they met on the steamer. 

That journey to Liverpool! Could she ever forget 
it? A.nd yet what was there to tell about it? The 
whole outside world was enveloped in a bright mist 
through which the sun tried time and again to pene- 
trate without success. The whole inside world 
represented an empty drawing-room coach, with 
herself for the sole occupant. It had been a longtime 
since she had traveled in anything but the small 
English carriages, and, if comfortable, they had 
seemed sadly cramped to her, with her American love 
of space. This concession that the Midland railway 
made to her countrymen’s habits already seemed like 
a bit of home — a home that stretched for her from 
sea to sea. She fancied what it would be to travel 
once more for hundreds of miles through unfenced, 


AFTERWARD. 


285 


itiiliedged, uncultivated country, and felt a healthy, 
homesick longing for her native land of endless possi- 
bilities and future developments. 

No one, to have looked at her, would have dreamed 
of the wide world of thought, of retrospection and 
introspection through which she was traveling with 
as much rapidity as that swift express was carrying 
her northward. She lay back in her chair most of 
the time, with her eyes closed. The casual observer 
would merely have noticed a highly-bred, distir - 
guished looking woman, whose dignity and sweet- 
ness would have claimed, if needed, the gracious offer 
of assistance. From the tip of the carefully shod 
foot just peeping from under her dress, as it rested 
on the ottoman, to the small black bonnet fitting 
closely about her face and emphasizing with itsbjack 
strings her slender white chin, she was the full en> 
bodiment of that most characteristic of all beautiful 
women, a finely formed and bred and perfectly 
dressed American lady. 

The hours and the miles glided away together. 
Finally, she fell into a sweet and dreamless sleep, 
from which she was aroused by the guard saying, 
“You are in Liverpool, ma’am.’’ 

The delay with her luggage w'as short, and in a 
few minutes she was rattling down the steep streets 
of the sea-port to her steamer, with that freshness of 
feeling and strength which follow a dreamless nap 


286 


AFTERWARD. 


taken unawares. The fog, which had partially lifted 
in the Midland country, hung to the very earth in 
Liverpool, trailing, floating swathes of mist which 
an occasional gust of wind waved back and forth 
like a curtain. 

The tall, black side of the gigantic steamer loomed 
like a wall of protection, as the tug halted beside it. 
Once fairly on board, she glanced around, surprised 
that Mark was not on hand to meet her, as he was 
not on the tug. He was nowhere to be seen. 

After assuring herself that her trunks were on, she 
went down to her state-room to dispose of her little 
belongings. 

Then she walked through the saloons, expectant 
now and eager to come upon her cowpagnon de 
voyage. Arrangements, doubtless, with some one or 
other of the officers had detained him about the ship; 
she wandered hither and thither, expecting to meet 
him at every turn. 

There were few passengers, according to the list, 
and fewer still visible. 

Finally she went up to the deck on the land side, 
and took her place by the railing to watch the 
occasional stray passengers who might come at the 
last minute. Not a doubt had yet disturbed her but 
that Mark would come. The first bell rang while 
she stood there. A half hour more still. It was 
rather pleasant, on the whole, this constant expecta- 


AFTERWARD. 


287 


tion of a certain pleasure, and she enjoyed it as she 
had the rest of the day, in a quiet, dreamy manner, 
but with an intense watchfulness and longing that 
made her unmindful of the clouds of fog swirling over 
the deck and packing the fur on her dolman. The 
mist rested in drops on her hair and moistened her 
face. She was only aware that it was refreshing. No 
chill could cool the glow of her high vitality. She 
started out of her absorption as the harsh clang of 
the second bell sounded. Surely he must appear now^ 
and her heart gave its first flutter of foreboding. 
Were they moving? Yes. 

She went back to her state-room, and, burying her 
face in her hands, wept gently, with a feeling of pro- 
found loneliness. 

Composing herself presently she went up again. 

They were moving slowly down the Mersey. The 
fog shut them in like a veil. She paced up and down 
the deck. The movement of the steamer was so 
smooth that she could hardly feel it. She went to 
the side, after a few minutes, and looked down. The 
level of the water was scarcely disturbed. Were they 
stopping? While she was wondering the blatant 
puff of a tug broke the stillness. Soon she saw the 
steam mingling with the fog. A stubby prow cut 
through the gloom, and in another minute the tug 
was alongside, and there was Mark, looking straight 
up into her eager, searching face which told her 


288 


afterward. 


whole story. It was worth being left a score of 
times to see the sudden dilation of those starry eyes, 
to catch the momentary quiver of that proud mouth, 
and to be watched for by the woman whom he had 
gazed at from afar for nearly two years, with a wor- 
shipful, never-ceasing regard. 

When he came to where she waited for him, he 
took the hand which she extended and held it for an 
instant in a close grasp, and looked at her with a long 
sigh of relief. 

“I expected to be here to see you aboard,” he said, 
gazing into her uplifted face as if he half expected she 
would vanish. “I came from Edinburg. We had a 
detention, and until an hour ago, I gave up reaching 
the steamer short of Queenstown. I hope you got 
aboard without any difficulty?” 

“0, yes; and in ample time. So I have been 
watching for you for an hour.” 

He flushed slightly. The sweetest words he had 
ever heard in his life she had just spoken. He glanced 
down at her momentarily, then at her wet cloak, 
and, noticing her damp hair, said, with manifest 
tenderness in his voice, “Have you been — outside — 
an hour ? ” 

“ That is nothing. But, now that you are here, 
we might as well go inside.” 

“Shall you leave me? ” There was a pang of dis- 
appointment in the manly voice which touched her, 


AFTERWARD. 


289 


and, glancing at him with the greatest gentleness and 
yet openness, she said, “I expect to depend alto- 
gether on your society.” 

As they stepped over the doorway she paused, a 
t rifle irresolutely. It was not according to the grain 
other nature to lead — but she telt like a hostess to 
Mark in this first hour that they were so alone to- 
gether. 

Do n’t you think this would be a nice place to sit? 
It is free from smells, and we shall get the air, and 
there is just enough coming and going to make it 
cheerful. If you will find my chair, I will meet you 
here in an hour.” 

The place she had selected was really a passage- 
way from one deck to another, but it was inclosed, 
and had space enough for a couple of sofas and a few 
chairs. There was little motion, and a constant cur- 
rent of air. They were both experienced sailors 
enough to know the preventive value of such a loca- 
tion. 

When she came back at the appointed time, the 
stewards following with pillows and rugs, Mark was 
there, and looked taller and handsomer than ever in 
a sealed-lined coat and high seal cap. 

They selected their places and sat down with that 

leisurely adjustment and the occasional remarks 

w'hich the sense of days of unbounded opportunity 

for each other’s society gave. After they had made 
19 


290 


AFTERWARD. 


themselvCvS comfortable and bad looked over the pas- 
senger list, each with a secret feeling of relief that the 
names represented unknown persons, they glided into 
a desultory and prolonged conversation such as they 
had had but once before — in Florence, six months ago. 

Six interminable months to Mark in passing, now 
a dream of almost utter blankness, and all the better 
for that, since she had been so little in them. 

With Madeline there was a tentative enjoyment of 
this new relation and position which did not in any 
way impair their value. Perfect confidence in a per- 
son does not imply a desire of expectation of perfect 
unity. Confidence, trust, was the pivot on which 
her love had finally turned ; trust in uprightness and 
definiteness of manly purpose. But she, like most 
women, had more than once found out that upright- 
ness and manliness may accompany great unrespon- 
siveness and an inborn lack of a thousand delicate 
intuitions not absolutely necessary to existence, but 
increasing its attractiveness and the expression of 
tenderness to an almost infinite extent. She did not 
believe for a moment that Mark was this kind of a 
man, or it would have been a foregone conclusion 
that she could not have loved him. Moreover, she 
had had sufficient proof to the contrary. However, 
she wanted time to learn the de]3th of this quality ii^ 
his nature, and if it were constant, but not deep, she 
could avoid disappointment fpr the future, She 


AFTERWARD. 


291 


would lean only just so far as there was this strength 
of delicate tenderness to lean on ; then he would sup- 
pose himself equal to her deepest needs, and she 
would be only half conscious of them, if she never 
sought or expected an impossible satisfaction. 

Was such casuistry impossible to true love? Nay, 
the intense lover is a profound casuist. 

Such a standard to a young person would perhaps 
preclude love. But, with the mature, love is a matter 
of many-sided selection. It includes an acute per- 
ception of the clearly defined limits inevitable to 
every personality, and a deliberate effort and longing 
never to infringe upon such limitations in the be- 
loved, after they are once known, and at the same 
time a thorough enjoyment of qualities, traits and 
attractions which are stronger than prudence, or 
otherwise there would never be second attach- 
ments. 

With Mark it was somewhat different. Madeline 
was his first love, and into his affection he threw an 
abandonment which crept through the reserve of his 
speech and manner in numberless ways. She satis- 
fied his ideal of a woman, and to him there was no 
future. 

But to them both, it is needless to say, the present 
was sufficiently delightful, or they would not have 
been situated exactly as they were, 


292 


AFTERWARD. 


All that afternoon the mists enveloped them and 
the steamer made slow progress. But the next morn- 
ing the sun rose from an unclouded sky. There was 
little wind. When Madeline came up stairs, cloaked 
and hooded for a walk, Mark was waiting for her. 

Their steamer had a long, wide deck, almost de- 
serted at this early hour. 

She took his arm. Up and down they paced, in the 
salt, crisp, sunny air, with a growing elation and 
freedom. 

The Irish coast with its treeless outline, now pur- 
ple and cold in the winter morning light, la}^ at their 
right. An occasional gull followed in their wake, 
rhythmically beating the air with its long, white 
wings. The cordage creaked and sighed in the wind. 
The great waves surged in their wake in joyous foam. 
Over them, till it met the dark blue water, arched the 
pale blue of the sky, soft, but cold with the neutral 
tints of a high latitude. 

That sky made Madeline think of Canada,, and 
then across all the summers and winters of the 
intervening years came the faces of her children. 
Once more she heard the patter of their feet close be- 
side her, and for an instant, in which she lived an 
hour of heart-ache, she was thousands of miles awav 
and on a Sound steamer, fleeing with her little one^ 
from the scene of their desolation. 


AFTERWARD. 


293 


Mark felt the sudden silence of her whole beinsf. 
He noticed the slow tightening of her hand on his 
arm. He looked down. Her eyes were far away — 
solemn, loving, unutterably sad. 

His gaze called her back. She glanced up, smiled 
with a half-sigh in which she appeared to bury the 
grief which had come to the surface, and then, after a 
second’s hesitation, said simply, “I was thinking of 
my children. I have two little ones whom I laid to 
sleep in Canada. They were drowned in one of the 
high tides of the Bay of PMndy.” 

He took the hand resting on his arm and folded it 
in his own. 

They paced up and down the solitary deck once or 
twice in silence. Then she said, without withdraw- 
ing her hand, “I would like to tell you the story of 
their brief lives.” 

This she did, with an artless pathos and tenderness 
that allied her anew in his memory with the ineffably 
benign if despairing motherhood in Murillo’s Ma- 
donna. 

When she had finished, lifting her hand reverently 
to his lips, he said, “Thank you.” 

Pretty soon a bevy of young girls came on deck, 
fresh as roses and charming to look at in their fluffy, 
white hoods. They had already built a whole volume 
of romance about Mark and Madeline, the successive 
chapters of which had been destroyed as soon as com- 
posed. 


294 AFTERWARD. 

‘‘Here, girls, here they are! ” whispered one, excit- 
edly, the wind taking the words far down the deck. 
“ She is perfectly lovely 1 Such divine eyes 1 She’s his 
sister! I’ve made up my mind to that! ” 

Mark glanced at Madeline, and they both laughed 
softly, and then, presently turning round, ran the 
gauntlet of the bright eyes that gazed with inviting 
admiration one second, and looked off over the sea 
the next with a high unconsciousness. 

When they came opposite, Madeline smiled and 
bowed, and Mark tipped his hat. From that minute 
they had five acolytes at their shrine from whose 
near or distant adoration it was almost impossible 
to escape. But on the whole, it made a piquant 
digression, and sometimes, during the long after- 
noons, he told them tales of India and Siberian 
stories of conscripts while the girls sat around 
Madeline, holding her hands or nestling against her 
lap as they half reclined on their rugs. 

Thus the days glided away. They were more than 
half over. Six days out. Not a drop of rain, not a 
gale. The log registering three hundred and seventy 
miles each noon. 

Madeline and Mark were more than content to sail 
on and on indefinitely. The five radiant girls declared 
that they wished that the voyage would last a 
month. 


AFTERWXRB. 


295 


“Only two more days to see you, dear Mrs. Win- 
chester,” exclaimed one, tragically. Then there was 
a universal moaning and lamenting. 

She found this excess of spirits and enthusiasm 
attractive. Mark, if truth be told, was desperately 
tired of their effusiveness and omnipresence, and 
although, thanks to them, he had seen many a sweet 
side to Madeline, still he would have been more than 
willing to take these revelations on trust. Positively 
there had not been two consecutive hours when their 
reading or their conversation had not been disturbed 
by these ubiquitous girls. In the midst of one of 
their carnivals of chatter, he excused himself and 
went out on deck. 

“He’s grand — perfectly grand, Mrs. Winchester,” 
said one of the fair satellites pensively, as Mark dis- 
appeared. “He makes me think — makes me think 
of Michael Angelo’s Moses in Saint Peter in 
Chains.” 

‘ ‘ Homs and all. Rose ? Bah ! ” 

“No, Pussy; but his strength! His proportions ! 
I adore a large man.” 

At this juncture, Mark stepped inside again. 

“ The fair weather is at an end.” He held the door 
ajar. “ Hear that 1 ” 

A mournful, hollow, reverberating moan wailed 
through the cordage. 


296 


AFTERWARD. 


“When the wind sounds like that, look out for a 
gale. Yoti will all be ill before to-morrow, young 
ladies.” 

“I should think you would be glad, Mr. Dascom, 
if we were. We have been sad torments, now have 
we not? ” asked Pussy. 

He looked a little quizzical and said good-naturedly 
that they had better improve present opportunities. 
Thereupon he began a sea yarn which they all pro- 
nounced the most thrilling story he had told yet. 

While he talked the wind increased. The stewards 
hurried back and forth through their snug quarters. 
A blast closed the door warningly. But six days of 
even ordinary sailing is a good preparation for 
rough weather. When the long sinking of the steamer 
into the deep hollows became more and more 
apparent, and when, suddenly, the bow cut through 
a gigantic wave which came tumbling over the deck 
with a roar like thunder, the girls only cried, 
“Delightful! ” and begged Mark for another story. 

When he had finished. Rose thanked him a little 
feebly, and presently, rising, and looking sus- 
piciously pale, made her sister go down stairs with 
her. 

Mark indulged in a wicked, eager hope concerning 
the remaining three and could have blessed Pussy, 
who, a half hour later, signified her intention of 
going to bed in order to prevent disastrous conse- 


AFTERWARD. 


297 


quences. Thereupon the other two voted it a 
splendid idea, and all three, after kissing Madeline 
several times over, simultaneously disappeared. 

The afternoon was closing somberly enough. The 
gale blew with steady force. The rain drove againsL 
the ports, washing them with an incessant blinding 
deluge. Ever and anon, a big sea flooded the decks 
Trom stem to stern, and the vessel shivered a second 
and then plunged bravely forward. 

‘‘It is pretty rough,” said Mark, though reassur- 
ingly, to Madeline, who sat in a corner of one of the 
sofas, numerous pillows tucked behind her back. 
‘‘This is no more than could be expected, and if it 
gets no worse, there is nothing to fear.” 

‘‘I am never afraid at sea,” she said. ‘‘Suchacom- 
motion of the elements always calms and elates me 
at the same time.” 

“You do not feel ill?” 

“On the contrary, I never felt better.” 

He was highly gratified. “Suppose I order our 
dinner up here. It will be a delightful change. AVe 
are more comfortable here than we could be down 
stairs.” 

She assented. 

Certainly Nothing could have been cosier, under the 
circumstances, than the really dainty meal he suc- 
ceeded in securing an hour later. Outside was the 
mingled roar of wind and water. Inside were the 


298 


AFTERWARD. 


warmtli and bright electric lights. The big tray 
with all their dinner served on it at once, and Mark 
beside her, doing the honors in a homely, genial way, 
made it seem as if they really might be boy and girl 
together, instead of man and woman drawing nearer 
and nearer, a mutual admission which only awaited 
opportunity. 

When they had finished their dinner, which ter- 
minated rather abruptly by a more sudden and 
violent pitch than they had yet had, and when one 
passenger after another had gradually left their 
eyrie, Mark sat down on the sofa beside Madeline, 
and they both laughed a little at the seclusion of 
their corner, with nothing but the cherry wainscoting 
in front of them, and, high up, two ports which the 
wind and rain together threatened to break through 
at any moment. 

“Could you not fancy this little house we are in, 
lifted bodily and carried overboard during one of 
these violent gales? Listen!” and she slightly 
turned her head, as the screaming, rushing wind beat 
against its frail barrier and carried with it a torrent 
that dashed angrily at their very feet. Then they 
plunged down, down into one of those unfathomable 
hollows, the very thought of whose black and toss- 
ing depths is an unspeakable horror to many, and 
then rose, as if borne on wings, only to quiver an in- 
stant on an uncertain eminence and then sink again 
into the very heart of the swelling tide. 


AFTERWARI>. 


299 


‘‘If it were day I would stand up on this sofa and 
lean against the port and look out until I seemed 
like the vessel itself winging its way like a petrel 
over the stormy waters. I love any experience that 
gives me the sensation of flying. Occasionally I have 
a dream in which I am wingless, but with an inward 
power of soaring movement which thrills me with 
delight every time I have it. Once I found myself, in 
such a dream, seated on a great ball of white cloud, 
interpenetrated in every direction with golden bright- 
ness, and then the cloud sank, and I moved above its 
soft brilliancy until we reached the earth, where my 
feet rested just as lightly as if I had taken a continu- 
ous step. If the power of sensation should be 
quickened immeasurably in another life, what incon- 
ceivable pleasure we shall have in that one way alone. 
I wonder if it is so with you ? But with me, the pass- 
ing of each year brings a keener and keener sense of 
an intangible but real nearness to an existence with 
experiences which of themselves make this life worth 
living. I feel as though I were only in the first chap- 
ter of a long, long story, of which I am the heroine, 
in which the plot and purpose will not clearly de- 
velop till after death. 

“Yes, I have that almost ever present sense of liv- 
ing in two worlds, this one, and the one beyond. I 
think perhaps it accounts for what seems to me 
the puerilty of manifesting or rather asserting too 


300 


AFTERWARb. 


strong a personality. 01’ what use is it? There is 
so much time before us. My intensest pleasure is al- 
ways in the present and what it leads to. I think 
very little of the past. 

“I do not think much of it, because I will not/^ said 
Madeline musingly. There is always an undercur- 
rent of consciousness in my mind, however, of its 
fatal shaping influences.” 

‘‘It is an effort with me to have this consciousness. 
I enjoy an intellectual life and crave intellectual com- 
panionship, but my own personal experiences of in- 
tellectuality are intuitive, just as most of my in- 
stincts act so spontaneously that I am often in the 
midst of mental or physical action, before I am 
aw’are.” 

“I should say that 3 ^ou are nearly, if not quite, 
perfectly healthy, then,” said Madeline. “You are, 
to all intents and purposes, winged, ph^^sically and 
mentally.” She gazed at him with involuntary ad- 
miration and longing for the rare and blessed en- 
dowment of such adjustment. While her being 
worked along the same lines to a less extent, she felt 
the effort of the lever too often — the throb and strain 
of the screw. 

He looked squarely into her eyes, feeling her sym- 
pathy, but not noticing her admiration. His love 
was too near its utterance. 


AFTERWARD. 


301 


“But,” and belaid one hand on the other, emphat- 
ically, “a strong body and a clear mind, both of 
which I must admit have served me well, thus far, 
are incomplete without a strong soul. There is where 
I am out of harmony. I pra}^, but my prayers too 
often do not seem to rise above my head. I live 
much in the conscious enjoyment of an endless exist- 
ence, but intuitively only. There ought to accom- 
pany this consciousness of immortality a spontane- 
ous and exquisite spiritual conception, 3'es, compan- 
ionship, which I can imagine, but which I so rareh" 
feel that, proportionateh^, I may say, I am alto- 
gether undeveloped spiritually. Madeline, just as I 
have turned instinctively and intuitivel}^ toward 
many a material good and. found it just what I 
needed, I turn spiritually to you. Will you take me. 
for life, for eternity, and mould me into something 
higher than I can be without you ? ” 

She had bent forward as he began speaking, and, as 
he continued, the veil of all the misgivings that had 
hidden the profoundness of her affection was rent in 
twain. She felt that he exalted her above what she 
was able to be, yet he asked her to walk with him, 
side by side, in partnership and companionship which 
made death lose all but the most blessed signifi- 
cance, so far as they two were concerned. It was 
this higher nature which had shone through and 
glorified him in other ways, which she had felt but 


302 


AFTERWARD. 


had not .seen, that had called forth irresistibly and 
naturally this last, best, highest affection of her 
whole being. 

She took his hands and folded her own about 
them. 

“Let us take each other,’’ she said soft!}', “to help 
always, to hinder never, if we can be so wise as 
that. God sent you to me, to be mine — as I am 
yours.” 

They sat a long time in almost entire silence — 
Madeline radiantly pale, her eyes shining like stars — 
Mark with a still elation and sense of the absolute- 
ness of his possession of her and hers of him, that 
made words seem idle. 

It was as if some angel had walked over the 
troubled waters around them to the deep seas of 
their hearts and had spoken in unutterable sweetness, 
“Peace, be still.” 

What did it matter to them that the fury of the 
storm increased, and that to keep one’s footing be- 
came well-nigh impossible? To Madeline there came, 
after a time, a sense of weariness, and she had risen to 
go down stairs, when the captain came inside a 
second. 

“You will be better off below, Madame,” he said to 
her questions as to whether they were in danger. 
“We shall ride the gale, I believe, through God’s 
mercy, but it is a bitter, angry night.” 


AFTERWARD. 


303 


dearest,” said Mark, when he was about 
leaving her at her cabin door, “I shall be outside 
here, in the saloon, all night. If anything should 
happen, come to me.” 

*‘IwilL” 

They kissed and parted. 

Donning her wrapper, she lay down on the sofa, 
not to sleep, but to think. Only that thin partition 
between her and the moaning, tossing waste outside. 
The beating roar was deafening. The gallant 
steamer rode the waves majesticall3^ As she yielded 
herself to the long, rocking movement with the 
pleasure of a good sailor, her gigantic cradle seemed 
as secure and snug"as the downy one of a little child. 
Gradually everything mingled in a confused and 
happy dream, and she slept. 

When she awoke, it was with an odd, alert sense of 
something wrong. Her electric light was out. The 
steamer pitched and rolled in every direction at once, 
as it seemed to her, just waking from a sound sleep. 
On her ear came the groping, shuffling movement of 
uncertain feet, hurrying hither and thither. She 
struggled from the sofa in a momentary lull that en- 
sued, and was instantly dashed across to her berth, 
to which she clung in desperation. 

“Mark, oh, Mark!” she called in a half whisper, 
and then, starting forward again, clutching, as she 
did so, her hanging cloak, she tore it from its peg, 


304 


AFTERWARD. 


and groped along the narrow passage leading from 
her state-room. She came suddenly against a man 
whose arms were spread out as if feeling the way. 

^‘Is it you, Mrs. Winchester? ” 

^‘Yes,” and she grasped the strong arm which 
inclosed her fervently at the same time, and, holding 
her thus, led her toward the saloon. 

“ The mizzen mast is swept away. Our fires are 
flooded. We are at the mercy of the elements. Don’t 
lose courage, sweetheart.” 

“It has not wavered, dear. We are together.” 

“Yes, thank God. Together forever, come what 
may. 

“Those poor girls — mere children! Where are 
they, Iw^onder?” said Madeline, as they finally 
reached a corner where she could brace herself with 
some firmness. “Sit down by me, please,” as Mark 
tried to stand, holding fast to the wainscoting. 

They sat there in the darkness, listening to the 
frightened moans of women and the groping of a 
hundred panic-stricken souls hither and thither. No 
word of fear, no mention of the doom that seemed 
imminent crossed their lips. Each was unspeakably 
glad that their love had found expression before this 
perhaps fatal hour. 

An hour later, a faint light began to creep across 
the vast room, revealing the confusion which reigned 
and the dumb fear on some faces and the hysterical 
nnrest on others. 


AFTERWARD. 


305 


“Madeline, dearest, let me lead to the door of 
your cabin, and I will stand outside while you put on 
all the wraps you can carry. We must be ready for 
the worst.” 

They made their way back. She came out again, 
presently, dressed for the exposure she might have to 
endure. “ Are you warm enough ? ” she asked, feeling 
his coat. ^ 

He looked down and smiled as she did so ; then, 
putting his arm about her, led her back. 

They came face to face with Rose and Pussy, who 
were laughing and crying alternately. 

“Where is your governess, my child?” asked 
Madeline. 

“With the others, trying to get them dressed,"” ex- 
claimed Rose. “0, if I do reach land again, I will 
never put my foot on this horrid sea. Let me stay 
with you, Mrs. Winchester, please do,” and Rose 
c4ung desperately to her. 

“Certainly. You, too. Pussy.” 

Mark led his little flock to a seat. Both he and 
Madeline found comfort in cheering the girls. 

Toward the middle of the morning, the rain ceased, 
but a thick fog settled down, and then to the rest of 
the din was added the incessant blowing of the fog- 
horn and the alternate clang of the bell. 

“Where are we, do you think?” whispered 

Madeline. 

20 


306 


AFTERWARD. 


Opposite Newfoundland.” 

She gave his hand a momentary pressure while 
patting Rose’s head which was leaning on her shoul- 
der. 

Thus another hour passed. Then, without warning, 
while they were all sitting still and expectant, there 
was a shock — a continuous quiver, and then an- 
other, as if tlie steamer were in her death throes, and 
then a sudden, awful cessation of movement. 

“We are on the rocks. 

Rose covered her mouth, but the next instant 
broke out into loud moans. 

“My dear Rose!” said Madeline calmly and a 
little sternly. 

Rose looked up and met those gentle eyes, solemn 
but so calm, and with a great effort controlled her- 
self. 

There was a rush forward for the decks. Mark 
followed the crowd, holding Madeline by the hand,* 
while the two girls clung to her skirts. They made 
their way up with great difficulty, and for an instant 
Mark closed his eyes as the grinding, surging roar 
smote upon his ears. 

What hope could there be 1 

The boats were in readiness for lowering, and 
frantic men and half insane women were crying for 
places. 


AFTERWARD. 


307 


The fog lifted slightly, revealing a long, low ledge 
on which the steamer was stranded, but the further 
view was entirely shut off still. 

“Let us wait,” said Mark, “till the steamer shows 
some signs of breaking up. This may be our safest 
place.” 

“It seems to me the}" are mad to attempt to lower 
the boat in such a sea,” said Madeline. 

“It is a chance in a thousand, either way, I sup- 
pose; but while there is life, there is hope.” 

“ There is always life, Mark; if not here, there!” 
She looked up. 

“And no parting.” 

“No parting.” 

Noon came, and then as suddenly as it had fallen, 
the fog lifted and revealed to the few who had re- 
mained on board a jutting, rocky peninsula, on 
whose extreme point the steamer was spiked. 

A loud cry of joy went up from the sailors as they 
saw their position. 

An hour later, a crowd had collected on the rocks 
in answer to their signals. Soon the ropes were in 
place, and the passengers sent over one by one. At 
nightfall, although the bitterness of a northern 
winter penetrated them to the bone, all who had re- 
mained on board were saved. 

Two days after, Mark and Madeline, with their 
luggage intact, and with the five girls an ! th^ 


308 


AFTERWARD. 


governess, all of whom clung to our travelers with 
the energy of desperation, embarked for Halifax en 
rotite to New York by train, which they reached 
without further adventure. 


I 


BOOK THREE. 








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CHAPTER L 


A DISTINGUISHED FAMILY. 

On Madison square there is a towering brown- 
stone house with a wide stoop, a deep vestibule, a 
broad flight of stairs leading from the parlor floor — 
everything, in fact, to constitute a spacious, elegant 
home in one of the old-fashioned but still handsome 
sections of changing New York. 

The house itself is forty years old, old enough to 
give an American family, had they occupied it from 
the time it was built, a claim to even fashionable re- 
spectability. 

The family who did live in the Madison square 
house had been there only ten years. In that time, 
how many fortunes had changed hands, segments of 
not a few being in the possession of the present occu- 
pant. How many merchant princes and princely 
bulls and bears, and railroad emperors, and imperial 
corn and pork and wheat and cotton brokers had 

been dethroned, or transported from the market to 
811 


312 


AFTERWARD. 


which they had brought nothing but a shrinkage of 
honest values to that mystery whither, whether rich 
or penniless, they could take nothing. But the house 
on Madison square had a bull for its master, whose 
horns were still tossing and tearing in Wall street; 
the house also contained a bevy of ambitious daugh- 
ters with soft voices, keen, cold eyes, hard, practical 
faces, good figures, and clear, shrewd brains that 
seemed like a feminine fugue sounding fantastically 
the “long” and “short” manipulations of the sire 
who, in fifteen years, without a cent of capital to 
start with, now counted his property by as many 
millions. 

Herter had furnished the house ; Sypher had pro- 
vided a few antiques ; numerous paintings in both 
oil and water; presenting much color and rich effects, 
had been purchased at low values from struggling 
native artists ; a library containing all the modern 
novelists, the standard poets, and a cyclopaedia, 
was oriental in its upholstered magnificence, and, for 
the rest, a maid for each daughter and other serv- 
ants in abundance, together with a boundless supply 
of gas shining through vari-colored shades, and 
lamps of all sizes and values illuminating romantic 
corners, gave an air of lavish expenditure and siib- 
dued splendor and bustle of life that made the house 
an immensely popular resort for young men. 


AFTERWARD. 


313 


None of tlie daughters married. Each had had her 
due number of flirtations and understandings. A 
score of proposals had been distributed among the 
six sisters, but still, here was Jeannette, the eldest, 
twenty-eight, and Posey, the youngest^ irremediably 
seventeen — and the same buzz and flutter, and com- 
ing and going, proceeding as they had done for the 
past ten years, only growing greater and greater as 
each sister persisted at eighteen on “coming out,’’ 
and sharing with the others the glitter and glow and 
company of down-stairs. 

Every one of these girls was as ambitious socially 
as their father was financially. 

The time had come when his great wealth brought 
him an invitation to join the Middlesex Hunts. He 
was a stockholder of the Esoteric riding school. 
The Victoria Regina was his club. He had a country- 
seat; a coachman and footman in livery, and whether 
it rained or blew or the mercury was at zero, his own 
horses took the young ladies everywhere. Cabs and 
hansoms might do in inclement weather for people 
whose horses became as tender as their house-dogs, 
but the Chubbock coach or brougham, or landau 
with its dark green body and wheels outli >ed in red, 
and high-stepping, short-tailed horses, never wearied 
in standing before the homes of the Misses Chub- 
bock’s endless list of acquaintances. 


314 


AFTERWARD. 


By and by, from desiring to possess station that 
was impregnable and family traditions that were 
honorable, the Misses Chubbock with one accord 
bought their father for a Christmas present the 
Book of Heraldry bound in vellum, and, while the 
eldest Miss Chubbock wrote hither and thither to 
find where the Chubbocks began, and, 0, joyful pos- 
sibility ! whether they began at all, with a view to 
writing for private distribution, the ancestry, ex- 
ploits, and honorable traditions of the family, the 
second Miss Chubbock, after long and weary search- 
ings, on stormy evenings, under the light of a lamp 
with a rose-red shade, in her father’s vellum-covered 
book, found,' at eleven o’clock one night, and after 
the rest had all retired, — would she ever forget the 
hour, the place, or her feeling, — that she was at last 
able to legitimately account for her innate pnde, her 
exclusiveness, and her instep— found, I say, that the 
Chubbocks were of noble blood ! There, before her 
eyes, were the words : 

“Chubbock — doubtless, originally Chou-de-bec, or de 
Chou-bec. A family of Normandy, of the ancient seigniory 
of Becque, a patrimony famous for a succulent vegetable 
much prized by William Coeur-de-Lion, who, in confiscating 
the land, ennobled the owner, playfully dubbing him Chou- 
bec or Chou-de-bec. Chou-de-bec followed the king to 
England, and thence, migrating to Ireland, became the 
ancestor of a numerous family, who sank into poverty 
uring the wars of Henry II.” 


AFTERWARD, 


316 


All that remained; therefore, was to establish the 
links between the twelfth and the nineteenth cent- 
uries. 

Patty Chubbock slept little that night. 

Jeannette, with such a clue in hand, redoubled her 
researches. The matter was also placed in the hands 
of an agent, to whom a handsome salary was 
promised, conditional on his success. In just one 
year the links were all discovered. A coat-of-arms 
of the time of Henry V. was found. The Chou-de-bec 
record was published and bound in Russia leather. 

On the door of the carriages appeared a gracefub 
flowering design not unlike the capital of a Corin- 
thian pillar with the acanthus leaves entirely blended 
together and curled inward instead of outward. 
Across this striking device ran the bar sinister, and 
from the top protruded two bird’s claws grasping 
the motto, ^‘In the end we succeed.” 

Dempsey and Carroll stamped a ream of their 
finest paper for each of the Misses Chubbock with 
this coat-of-arms. From that time the sisters grew 
more fastidious than ever over uniting their blue blood 
with that of any of the sons of the parvenues of Man- 
hattan. The sisters? Five of the sisters felt in this 
way. Isabel, the fourth, though expressing herself 
very positively, had private views which my story will 
gradually develop. In these views, Posey, the young- 
est, might be said to share tentatively. However, 


316 


AFTERWARD. 


Posey was one of those intense conservatives who 
never openly took a side till victory perched on 
its banners. Then she entertained pronounced con- 
victions. But Isabel had one of those clear minds 
whose opinions are seldom weakened or strengthened 
prolonged conversations on a subject occupying 
her thought. She could sit perfectly still for an hour, 
her small, not unkindly, gray eyes fixed steadily on 
some spot on the carpet or rolling lazily and ab- 
stractedly around the room ; but, when Isabel rose 
to her feet, her mind was made up. Everything in 
life with her represented unspoken or unconsummated 
values. The difference between her and her sisters 
was that they had openly and radically committed 
themselves to one line of thought and action. Isabel, 
confident in her own shrewdness, and loving shrewd- 
ness for its own sake, had decided, at twenty years 
of age, to have, so to speak, her private wire, which 
kept her informed of all those more abstruse condi- 
tions of the social and matrimonial world, and she 
had determined to be always on the rising side. 
Posey might be said to be the daily family news- 
paper that ordinarily neutrally chronicled Isabel’s 
sayings and doings, giving a long, oral, commenda- 
tory editorial only when she had made a comer. 

While glancing over the paper one morning, Isabel 
saw among the personals that Carroll Saxby was 
expected home on the following Monday on La 
Bretagne. 


AFTERWARD. 


317 


It occurred to her that she had not called on Mrs. 
Saxby since that lady’s return to town. Mrs. Saxby 
enjoyed Isabel, and made her home one of those 
familiar resorts whither the young girl might go at 
any hour. 

Having made up her mind to call, Isabel at once 
appropriated the coupe to her morning use, and, 
accordingly, on rising from the breakfast table, said, 
quite as a matter of course, ‘Tspeak for the coupe 
this morning.” 

“But Patty and I had agreed to spend the morning 
in .shopping, Isabel, and unless we have the coupe, 
we can’t finish,” said Jeannette. 

“You had the coupe yesterday, Jeannette,” said 
Isabel persistently. 

“Yes, but father sent me to do something for him. 
You can call a cab, Isabel.” 

“ Why can’t you, for shopping? I want the coach- 
man and the footman.” 

“ We do not wish to be drawing on our allowance 
for cabs all the time, Isabel. Then the coupe for you 
means twice what it does for the rest of us. You go 
off by yourself so much.” 

“If it is the money, Jeannette,” said Isabel, mag- 
nificently, “I will pay for your cab.” 

“O, very well,” said Patty, straightening her hand- 
some shoulders, “if ^'■ou can afford to pay for our cab, 
take the coupe. They say there always has to be one 
selfish member in a family.” 


318 


afterward. 


Isabel took out Her pocket-book, separated the 
tieatly folded bills, took one out, then very deliber- 
ately putting it back, said, “Have the cab charged to 
nly account, Jeannette, dear. Don’t feel you must 
hurry home.” Then, ringing for Munson, the coach- 
man, she ordered the coupe for ten o’clock. In walk- 
ing out of the room, she cast a swift, oblique glance 
at Posey, who threw her a kiss. 

She hummed a satisfied little tune as she went up 
the broad stair-case to her room, a room always in- 
viting from an orderly confusion which reigned there, 
and bec&,use of the extensive paraphernalia belonging 
to a fashionable girl’s toilet. It had just been put in 
order. The cold morning air was fluttering the lace 
curtains. The sunlight, falling on the bureau, 
touched a variety of silk bags pendant from the gas 
jets. German favors pinned on the curtains and 
fastened around the mirror frame, and glinted from 
the silver backed combs and brushes spread in a neat 
row. 

Isabel rang her maid up peremptorily from the 
basement, where she was breakfasting. When that 
functionary appeared out of breath, and asked in a 
tremulous, gasping voice, “Did you ring, Miss? ’’she 
replied, “Yes, I rang, of course. Put the windows 
down. Get my tailor suit, and brush the coat. 
Are my walking boots in order? ” 

“Yes, Miss.” 


AFTERWARD. 


319 


Very well. Be ready to go out with me at ten 
o’clock. Don’t keep me waiting as you did yester- 
day, Annette.” 

‘‘No, Miss. Can I do anything else. Miss?” 

‘‘I’ll dress myself. That is all.” 

She stepped to the window when she was alone 
and looked out. She saw everything that was going 
on on the square, but she was thinking of Mrs. Win- 
chester. She was deciding how to treat Madeline, if 
she should meet her. Isabel, like many another 
young girl, was much more concerned about what 
she thought of people than about what they thought 
of her. The question was what her attitude toward 
Mrs. Winchester should be. As to Mrs. Winchester’s 
opinion of her — well, under existing circumstances, it 
was not worth considering. When she concluded her 
cogitations, she had arrived no further than to 
resolve to do nothing to displease Mrs.Saxby. That 
was expedient. She would have preferred to throw 
a shade of condescension into her manner, whether or 
no. She enjoyed that sort of thing, because of the 
importance it appeared to give her, which was 
greater or less, according to the age or dignity of the 
person with whom she assumed these airs. 

At the present moment, though, it behooved her to 
change her dress, and, if she were to do it with the 
proper care, to change it at once. 


320 


AFTERWARD, 


She had a sturdy little figure, extremely well 
formed, which was carefully and too tightly corseted, 
but her long, full, tapering waist was sufficient reward 
for the discomfort induced. Her hands and face told 
no tale of congestion, for she had a colorless, yet 
healthy skin, matched by neutral brown hair. A 
well-turned wrist off-set by a very white and pretty 
hand, a really beautiful mouth and chin, a cold, intel- 
lectual eye, capable, however, of much tender expres- 
sion, and a never failing belief in the potential power 
and present importance of Isabel Chubbock made, 
with her other attractions, a sufficiently interesting 
personality and one admirably adapted for the stage 
on which she had projected her ambitions. She was 
indeed a stylish girl, when, with Annette behind her, 
she issued out of the plate glass storm doors of her 
home, and paused to survey the equipage at the side- 
walk. 

“A little nearer to the sidewalk, Munson.’^ 

James, the footman, with a huge fur collar around 
his long neck, held the door open with an unction re- 
served for Miss Isabel alone. Munson, while motion- 
less as a statue, his whip upright in the air, never- 
theless saw everything that the young lady wore 
and rejoiced to sit on the box. Annette stepped in 
humbly after her mistress, and the immaculate coupe 
rolled away as a mud bespattered cab drew up, 


AFTERWARD. 


321 


which the elder sisters were only too glad to see, as 
they had telephoned time and again before even this 
vehicle responded. 

Isabel would have been' glad to dispense with 
Annette as a street companion, but, after much 
wearisome reflection, she had decided that such an 
appendage lent a necessary distinction. The more 
careful she was to never be seen unaccompanied, the 
firmer would be her reputation for a kind of un- 
worldly worldliness which her accurate knowledge of 
ultra snobbery led her to believe a valuable charac- 
teristic matrimonially considered. 

While she paused in the square hall of Mrs. Saxby 's 
house to give her name and a message to the butler, 
she heard a faint rustling above her, and glanced up 
to see a lady in a soft gray morning dress sweeping 
down the spacious stairway. 

The lady held a book in one hand, a finger between 
the leaves to keep the place. Her sparkling, stead- 
fast eyes rested carelessly on Isabel, as she 
descended. 

The girl, forgetful for a moment of whom the lady 
must be, looked at her with a kind of arrested sur- 
prise. Then, to her intense chagrin, she found herself 
gazing after a tall, willowy form disappearing in the 
shadowy recesses toward the library, and felt, in 
that second, that she had failed to awaken even a 
question in Mrs. Winchester’s mind. 


322 


AFTERWARD. 


Soon after, Jasper, the butler, came to ask if ^‘Miss 
Isabel would please go right up to Mrs. Saxby’s sit- 
ting room.’* 

In another instant, she was tripping rapidly up the 
stairs. 

Then, with a tap which she followed by instantly 
opening the door, she glided in and extended both 
hands to Mrs. Saxby, saying effusively: 

“It is the longest age since I have seen you. And 
you wouldn’t even write a note to your little Isabel. 
So now that we are settled for the winter, I have 
come to hunt you up.” 

“ We have been just as busy, my dear. But I’m de- 
lighted to see you once more. How 'well you look. 
A little color, too, which is rare for you. Did you 
walk way up here from Madison square? ” 

“No. My maid is a poor walker, which is a sad 
fault. She speaks such excellent French, though, that 
I’ve concluded to keep her. I came up with Annette, 
in the coupe.” 

“Do you have to bring your maid when you 
drive?” 

“0, yes!” said Isabel with determination. “It is 
one of papa’s rules that I am never to go out unat- 
tended. It is a fact, dear Mrs. Saxby, that when a 
girl has a maid, gentlemen do not stare at her so. 
Papa says he doesn’t know what there is about me 
that makes men stare so.” 


AFTERWARD. 


323 


“Nonsense!’’ said Mrs. Saxby, giving Isabel an 
admiring look which fed her vanity. 

“And you are all alone, too. How nice! I can stay 
just as long as I want to.’’ 

“ Not alone, but you can stay as well as not. Can ’t 
you lunch with us? ’’ 

“0, no. I must be home long before that. I did 
not mean to stay as long as that.” 

“Do let me send Annette back with the coupe. 
And if you are afraid to go home alone, I will have 
Julie take you. Come, stay to lunch.” 

“Well, if you will send Julie to the opera house 
with me, in time for the symphony — instead of 
home,” said Isabel hesitatingly and prettily. Then, 
drawing back as if on second thought, “But you 
have company.” 

“Yes, my dear friend, Mrs. Winchester. As she 
will spend the winter, that need make no difference.” 

“How grateful she must be to you.” 

- “I don’t understand, Isabel,” said Mrs. Saxby a 
little severely. 

“I mean how very good of you to give her such a 
long invitation.” 

“She is the only friend, I think, whom I would ask 
to stay so long.” 

“Of course. You are always a little better and do 
a little more — than — any — body — I know!” She 
put her arms around Mrs. Saxby’s neck, nestling 
there like a kitten. 


324 


AFTERWARD. 


Now Mrs. Saxb\^ liked the petting of young people 
immensely. She liked their flatter3^ This girl, how- 
ever, must be made to understand Mrs. Winchester’s 
position, before they met at lunch. 

Isabel understood it better than Mrs. Saxby could 
possibly have defined it. She had heard it canvassed 
and di.scussed at a dozen luncheons. She and her 
sisters had sat in solemn conclave a whole evening 
when a chance caller had told them that Mrs. 
Winchester was in New York again, and visiting 
Mrs. Saxby. They all agreed that Mrs. Saxby was 
too regardless of public opinion, and that Mrs. 
Winchester was presuming and selfish to try to 
enter society again under Mrs. Saxby’s escort. 

Isabel with her hands still resting in Mrs. Saxby’s, 
looked at that lady with expressionless, wide-open 
eyes, but a beguilingly tender mouth as she listened 
to what her friend termed a misconception and real 
social cruelty. 

“Mrs. Winchester is the noblest woman that ever 
lived, Isabel. She is a much greater loss to society 
than society can ever be to her. Then she is a woman 
of infinite resources.” 

“That shows she has been unfortunate, Mrs. 
Saxby. All these awfully, awfully clever women are 
unfortunate. But of course, papa could never say 
anything if I met her in your house. Papa, I know, 
is foolishly particular about whom we know. Al- 


AFTER WARD. 


325 


though I am only a girl, without much knowledge 
of the world, still I am learning enough to feel sure 
that you are — more — generous than anyone else 
would be.” 

Mrs. Saxby dropped the girl’s hands. Her e 3 ^es 
flashed. “Isabel, I love Mrs. Winchester, next to 
John and Carroll, more than any one in this world. 
You do not know what you are talking about, my 
child, or I should be angry.” 

“0, I am such a blunderer. Do forgive me for my 
stupidity. You will see how charming I will be to 
Mrs. Winchester.” . 

AIJ the same, she meant that in some solitary en- 
counter the lady should atone for ignoring such a 
presence as her own during that momentary meeting 
in the hall. It was her duty — hers — Miss Isabel 
Chubbock’s — to draw the line somewhere, between 
the people she could know and those whom it would 
be absolutely perilous for a young lady with such a 
mounting ambition to recognize. 

Nothing could have been more perfect than Isabel’s 
cool self-consciousness tempered to a girlish uncon- 
sciousness, as she entered the dining-room from the 
parlor, side by side with Mrs. Saxby. 

Mrs. Winchester was already there, standing in the 
bay-window terminating the room, and idly glancing 
out while holding the draperies back with one hand. 


326 


AFTERWARD. 


Isabel gave an envious smothered little gasp which 
she choked in her throat, as she observed the tall 
form and graceful attitude in her march down the 
long rooms. It would have suited her to have the 
lady watching her entrance; for she had it all 
planned in her mind just how she would nod when 
the introduction was given, and how she would pre- 
serve her dignity in any conversation that should 
follow, and, how, also, she would have a bag of 
news and supposition and criticisms for the first 
lunch party she attended. 

Mrs. Saxby walked right on to Mrs. Winchester, 
but Isabel, having reached the table, skillfully fell a 
little behind, and so when Mrs. Saxby said, “Mrs. 
Winchester,’’ and, as that lady turned, “My young 
friend, Miss Isabel Chubbock,” Isabel, in a position 
to escape Rebecca’s observation, raised her little 
Chinese eyebrows barely perceptibly as Madeline 
glanced at her, and then, with a sweet smile and a 
cold eye, made her prettiest salutation, leaving 
Madeline infinitely amused at an attack from such a 
youthfully feminine quarter. 

It is one thing to know a condition of affairs, and 
another to notice it. 

Madeline took her seat opposite Rel^ecca, Isabel 
between them, and, with a faultless poise of head and 
carriage, turned graciously to the young lady, looked 


AFTERWARD. 


327 


at her benignantly with a calm, kindly scrutiny, and, 
as if having come to a conclusion quickly, asked, 
“ Are you having a gay winter? 

Ordinarily, Isabel would have hailed such a ques- 
tion as giving her an opportunity to launch into a 
rapid rehearsal of the brightest social events of her 
life. But this question from Mrs. Winchester simply 
filled her with rage. There was an intellectual 
quality about the older lady which she felt, and with 
the inconsistency common to us all, while having no 
favors to give herself, she instantly resented it that 
Madeline should take it so for granted that she was 
a merely fashionable young lady. It was true that 
she desired to be considered fashionable; she desired 
to be considered ultra exclusive; but, while never 
feeling even a fleeting qualm of shame, if she appeared 
to lack in mere knowledge, she aimed at having her 
mental possibilities cover a wide horizon. Few, even 
ordinary, girls can grow up in New York without 
learning the art of appearing well on a ver}" little and 
suggesting untold capacity; whether it be in physical 
or mental furniture, the question becomes with many 
of them, in time, the scintillating quality of the 
appearance instead of an actuality of performance 
representing the expenditure of force, or real develop- 
ment. All of Isabel’s education had been in the 
direction of appearances. There were in consequence 
very few subjects on which she could not say some 


328 


AFTERWARD. 


borrowed bright things and occasionally an original 
clever sentence or two. She was a good listener, a 
close observer, a member of several of those labor- 
saving classes so much in vogue in cities, where one 
lady becomes a kind of talking cyclopaedia for the 
others. She danced well, spoke French and German, 
was au courant with the best plays and operas, fre- 
quented the symphony rehearsals, played the piano 
tolerably well, and sang abominably but with much 
volume, most of the airs popular on the stage. She 
was generally spoken of, though, as the brightest 
girl in her set, and society notes frequently mentioned 
incidentally that she was accomplished. It was, 
therefore, with a calm sense of power that she said : 

“Yes, very gay indeed, if you mean, do I have many 
engagements. I regret to say that I shall have to 
ask Mrs. Saxby to excuse me early from lunch to 
hear the symphony this afternoon. What do you 
think of the youthful leader of the symphony? ” 

“I have not heard him.” 

“But you have read about him.” 

“Certainly. Reading is not hearing. Is he like his 
father?” 

“Ye-es — and n-o,” said Isabel tentatively. “He 
has a trace of passion which is helpful. That is where 
the Philharmonic leader has the great advantage in 
his concerts. He perfectly controls the spirit of the 
music. Now the symphonies are correct, but so cold. 
Don’t you find them very cold, Mrs. Saxby?” 


AFTERWARD. 


329 


“ Ah, I am no judge. Ask me about something 
spectacular, and I will give you an opinion. An 
opera, or a play, or pictures, they are my delight.” 

Isabel nodded her head approvingly and respect- 
lully. 

“Do you sing, Mrs. Winchester?” 

“Yes.” . 

“And play?” 

“A little.” 

“ Classical music ? ” 

“I attempt it,” said Madeline with a smile. “You 
play, of course? ” 

“0, yes,” said Isabel carelessly. “Such an exigent 
professor as I have. One has to play when taught 
by him, whether or not.” 

“Isabel does play very well indeed,” said Mrs. 
Saxby. 

Isabel spread her hands in a deprecatory manner. 
Her aim was to draw Mrs. Winchester out, and she 
knew that she could not do so if the conversation 
turned upon herself, pleasant as it would have been 
to comment further upon such a fruitful theme. 

“You have been in Europe a long time, Mrs. Win- 
chester. Do you like it better than this country?” 
Isabel felt that she was daring, but she held her 
countenance sufficiently ingenuous to look steadily 
into Madeline’s hazel eyes, even while having a slight 
mental struggle against their dominant honesty. 


330 


AFTERWARD. 


'‘I do not like it as well/' said Madeline, knowing 
that only the simplest, baldest truth could take this 
irrepressible girl unawares. 

“You don’t!” exclaimed Isabel with unguarded, 
blunt surprise. It was on the tip of her tongue to 
retort with, “Why did you stay so long? ” but there 
was a steadiness and yet no emotional glow in those 
clear eyes that ^bashed and piqued her. There was 
a rustling in Mrs. Saxby’s , chair, too, that was 
admonitory. 

“Isabel,” she said, a trifle sharply, “I don’t hear 
anything about the Enderby’s these da^^s. Are they 
going to stay at Lakewood all winter? Is Mary 
Enderby so delicate as that?” 

“ 0, they are coming back when Lent begins. 
Mary has had her own way so long that they can’t 
say no to her, so they are staying out of the city till 
the ball season is over. She will dance; and if Mary 
dances, she dies! They are all down there, sleeping 
on pine pillows and walking in pine woods, and sit- 
ting in glass galleries — and hearing the wind m-o-a-n. 
They write that it is lovely; but I know; I’ve 
tried it.” 

” You and Mary were so intimate.” 

“Yes; but I was beginning so outgrow Mary be- 
fore she went away, although we are of the same 
age,” she added cautiously. 


afterward. 


S3l 


Isabels twenty years sat on her consciousness like 
a rook on a town-clock. It made the past time, 
merry enough in itself, appear ominous of the future. 
So many of the girls in her set were already married, 
and she was not even engaged. For Madeline’s 
benefit, she added : 

“It seems such a little while ago that Mary and I 
were out with our nurses, day after day, together. 
And here we are, young ladies. But it is nice to be a 
young lady. Well, I must go. 

“No, dear Mrs. Saxby, I can’t wait for the cream. 
May I tell Julie she is to take me to the opera 
house? ” 

“She understands,’’ said Rebecca. 

“I will send her right back, as I can go home in 
Mrs. Porterfield’s carriage. We have invited her to 
share our box. Some time you must let me come for 
you, Mrs. Saxby. I believe I can make you enjoy the 
symphonies.” 

She had risen from her chair and stood with her 
hand caressingly on Rebecca’s shoulder. She turned 
and made a pretty little farewell bow to ^'•'adeline. 
Then, when half way to the door, said, with her face 
in profile, “By the way, when is Carroll coming? 
Never, Ido believe.” 

There was a pale, pink flush on Isabel’s neck and 
cheek which Rebecca noticed ; she smiled a little as 
she replied with purposed vagueness, “This month.” 

“Really? I am surprised. He will be a great addi- 
tion to the winter gaiety. Good-bye.” 


CHAPTER II. 


FAMILY CONCLAVES. 

Carroll Saxby approached New York on a glo- 
rious December day. A high tide partially concealed 
the ugly piers and grim piles of the ferry slips. Staten 
Island and the Jersey shore loomed in misty blueness 
on the left, as if an Indian summer haze still lingered 
among their valleys and hills. The spires, the domes, 
and the tall buildings of the city shone against the 
deep blue sky with more than Venetian warmth and 
richness of color. Craft of all kinds disported in the 
magnificent harbor. From the picturesque villas on 
either shore with their palatial inclosures of private 
ground, to the airy proportions of the great metro- 
politan bridge, his eyes wandered with a restful 
sense of nearness, of national prosperity, and the 
nearness of home. 

The thought that this was his native land gave 
him for a few minutes the zest of youth unstained by 
folly and sin. 


332 


AFTERWARD. 


333 


No one looking on that blonde face with its clear 
blue eye, at the mass of waving brown hair brushed 
up high from the forehead, at the muscular frame, 
closely knit and sinewy, could have failed to be 
proud to acknowledge Carroll as kith and closest 
kin. 

When Rebecca caught sight of him in the bow, as 
the vessel stopped in mid-stream preparatory to 
swinging toward her pier, her happiness and pride 
were unbounded. 

“See, John, tkere he is; take the glass, quick! 
He is in the bow. O, how handsome and good he 
looks! Dear boy ! ” and other caressing words died 
in a happy gurgle in her throat, as she waived her 
handkerchief franticall 3 ^ 

“Yes, that’s Carroll! ” said John sedately but cast- 
ing a furtive glance of pride and complacency at 
Rebecca. “He’s very much changed since we were 
over, but we would know the cut of that face— eh, 
wifey ? — twenty years hence, if we never saw it be- 
tween now and then.” 

“Know it? Why, I know all the changes already, 
but they haven’t altered him. There, now they are 
coming in I 0, John, how can I wait? My heart is 
in my mouth.” 

John took her hand, which had crept into his arm, 
and patted it. “He’s safe across now, Rebecca. Ten 
minutes more.” 


334 


AFTERWARD. 


‘‘0, John, what a blessing to have our boy oome 
home with honor, and just as sweet and gjood as he 
was ten years ago. Oughtn’t we to be thankful?” 

John drew a sigh, half of relief that his son was so 
near, and full of hope that was really as much faith 
as Rebecca’s that Carroll the man was only the ex- 
pansion of the boy. There was, though, in John’s 
masculine thought : “ Three years are a long time to 
have lived from home, and boys as good as mine 
have come back bad men.” 

An hour later, however, there was not a prouder 
or more confident father than Mr. Saxby. 

‘^Hasn’t altered a bit, Rebecca! As smart as a 
Harvard professor and as pure as a girl. Why, I 
believe he is as sweet and wholesome as Blanche 
Allerton. I can’t praise his morals higher than 
that.” 

'‘Ah, John,” said Rebecca, “if Carroll and Blanche 
should marry, my last wish for our boy would be 
gratified.” 

“It would please me as well as you, my dear. Just 
as like as not, however, he will fancy a girl like — 
Isabel Chubbock, for instance.” 

“Never, John, never I ” Rebecca turned on him with 
astonishment. “I am sure, if there were nothing 
else, with Carroll’s lastidious notions about girls, 
Isabel is too ultra- American.” 


AFTERWARD. 


335 


That’s just the reason he would enjoy her. I dare 
say he is tired to death of reserved, sweet girls like 
Blanche, whom you would have to know a 3^ar to 
discover that there was any warmth in them. Ha, 
ha, ha! ” and John threw his head back and laughed 
heartily as he thought of Isabel. “She is the kind of 
girl to throw herself right into a man’s arms and out 
again the very next minute — to be coaxed back a 
second time. I always amuse myself, when we meet 
Isabel out, in watching her maneuvers.” 

“Isabel is excellent at heart, and so clever.” 

“Yes, sharp as a razor, and with as many airs as 
an orchestra. Her tunes are set to all kinds of instru- 
ments, too. She will never be a failure. It’s aston- 
ishing, Rebecca, how much that girl resembles her 
father. He wins every time in Wall street. She will 
make just as good scores in her sphere of action.” 

“She fails very often,” said Rebecca simply. 
“Sometimes I am sorry for her. Isabel has some 
noble traits.” 

Their conversation was interrupted by Carroll’s 
entrance, who glanced at his mother with undis- 
guised fondness. 

Rebecca absorbed that expression with a swelling 
heart. Her tears came as he tucked his cheek beside 
hers and then kissed her as she made some new com- 
ment full of motherly love. 


336 


AFTERWARD. 


“You do not ask after any of the pretty girls, 
Carroll,” said Mr. Saxby, after a while. ‘‘They are 
legion.” 

“I suppose «o,” said Carroll, indifferently. At that 
instant Rosalia was tugging at his affection and 
making all this gay home-coming a splendid misery. 
Somehow, she had had a fashion of tormenting him 
since that rencontre in Interlachen. When he fancied, 
too, that he had buried h’s love for her, forever. 1 1 
her face had not been so sad, as she leaned again t 
the tree! He had been able to think of her as ga^’ 
and volatile and doubtless married, till those despair- 
ing eyes had watched him out of sight in Interlachen. 
If only some one else had entered the place from 
which he had tried so hard to banish Rosalia. Ti.e 
long sea voyage had given him too ample oppor- 
tunity for reflection. 

Rebecca noticed the look of fretful anxiety on his 
face, and said, “Don’t thrust the girls at him, John. 
Carroll has ample time to make his choice leis- 
urely.” 

“I don’t know about that!” said John oracularly. 

^ “The men in my family always married young, and 
they were the better for it.” 

“Is Isabel Chubbock coming out this winter?'’ 
Carroll roused himself to ask, 

John^s eyes twinkled. 


AFTERWARD. 


337 


“Comitig out? She is out. There arc six roses in 
that Chubbock bunch ; four in full bloom, one open- 
ing bud, that’s Isabel ! She’s a bud one minute and a 
wide open flower the next. She will be a study for 
you, my boy! And there is Posey! ” 

“All right! ’’ said Carroll, good-naturedly. 

“It looks, though,’’ said his father, determined to 
carry out his fancy, “as if whoever took one of the 
flowers would have to pluck the whole bunch.’’ 

“Do you remember Blanche Allerton, Carroll?’’ 
said Rebecca timidly. 

“Little Blanche Allerton. A pretty blonde thing 
with an awfully severe mother with English 
notions?” 

“ That’s the one,” said John, slapping his knee. 

“Yes, I remember her,” said Carroll. “Is she 
beautiful ? ” 

“ Very ! ” said Rebecca warmly. 

Carroll nodded. 

“ You can meet all the girls at our riding club, my 
-boy. Riding clubs are our latest kink. By the way, 
this is your mother’s night, and you must accompany 
her.” 

“I’m' at her service for all hours and all occasions. 
And now, father, if you are going down street, I’ll 
go with you,” said the son, as John began putting 
on his overcoat. 


338 


AFTERWARD. 


‘^Glad to hear you say so, Carroll. IM like to 
show you the new office, and I’d like to introduce 
you at the Exchange. There are three or four hours 
of the business day left yet.” 

Carroll lifted his mother’s hand respectfully to his 
lips, smiled affectionately into her beautiful brown 
eyes, and saying gaily ''Auf vviedersehen,^’ left the 
room. 

While he was driving down town with his father, 
Blanche and Mrs. Allerton were having an animated 
discussion over Isabel. 

Mrs. Allerton’s eye-glasses bridged her aristocratic 
nose. Her white hair, arranged a la Pompadour, a 
style she never altered, was as soft and silky as her 
breakfast sack of mauve. One long white hand was 
tapping the table emphatically^ as she said, “It is no 
use, Blanche, no use whatever. I can’t allow it, and 
I should think you would know better yourself.” 

“I can’t see a bit ofharminit. Everybody else 
has taken Isabel up, and it is high time we did. 
Nobody else but you, Mamma, considers me such an- 
ultra precious morsel of humanity. And I am sure,” 
added Blanche with a pout, as Mrs. Allerton’s lips 
shut more and more firmly, “and I am sure, if we 
can go to the Chubbock reception, it can’t do me 
any harm to invite Isabel to drive in the park.” 

“Blanche, how silly you can be, when you try! 
What is a reception! A grand conglomeration of 


AFTERWARD. 


339 


nonentities and a few celebrities. I don’t object to 
your knowing the Chubbocks at the distance of a 
reception ; but, to drive alone with, one of those girls, 
and Isabel especially, why, my dear, your father 
would feel outraged.” 

‘‘Well, what am I to do about it?” said Blanche 
desperately. “I have invited her, and for to-day.” 

“Send a messenger-boy with a note that you are ill 
and can’t go. And don’t, my dear, be caught in such 
a box again. Isabel would fast a ?nonth to drive 
with you. She knows the worth of the attention, if 

ou do not.” 

“Mamma,” said Blanche, looking up with a flush 
of mortification, “it makes me feel unutterably vul- 
gar to think so much of myself. I am not ill.” 

“You will be, if you go out with that girl. So it 
amounts to the same thing. Here! I’ll write the 
note and you can copy it.” 

Blanche leaned her head on her hand and looked 
drearily out of the window. 

Mrs. Allerton opened her portfolio, and five min- 
utes later read the following to Blanche: 

“ My Dear Miss Chubbock 

Blanche looked up. “I call her Isabel.” 

“Dear me!” said Mrs. Allerton in desperation. 


“Well, ‘Dear Isabel,’ then,” 


340 


AFTERWARD. 


Dear Isabel: 

“I regret exceedingly that a sore throat will keep me at 
home to-day. You know, as I am subject to quinzy, that I 
have to be very careful. Hoping that you will not be dis 
appointed, and with a thousand regrets that our pleasure 
must be interfered with, 

“Yours, 

“Blanche Allerton.” 

“I think it is cruelly cold, and I know she will be 
angry,” said Blanche, with tears in her voice. 

“ What if she is ! ” I put in ‘a thousand regrets’ 
very grudgingly, I can assure you,” said her mother. 
“I did think that would please you.” 

” I don’t like to hurt people. I don’t think it is 
nice. I hate above all things to lie.” 

” Blanche!” 

She looked up with a desperate attempt at 
bravery. But her lids fluttered, and there was a 
nervous swallow in her usually calm throat. 

When a young lady reaches the j^oint where she 
will break the sixth commandment, my dear, it does 
not become her to be over conscientious. And now, 
mv darling,” said Mrs. Allerton, as Blanche stood 
there, looking utterly helpless and miserable, write 
oft' the note without any further fuss, while I ring. 
If it is any comfort to you, child, you may be sure 
that Isabel Chubbock will attribute that note to the 
one to whom it belongs. I feel able to bear her 
wrath.” 


AFTERWARD. 


341 


Blanche succumbed, as she had hundreds of times 
before. 

The note reached Isabel while the six sisters were 
lingering over a late breakfast, discussing all the 
pros and cons connected with the seven hundred 
invitations already issued for the reception. 

“Now, Posey, if you do show yourself,*’ Isabel was 
saying wamingly, “it won’t be well for you. Not 
even the tip end of your nose is to be seen.’* 

“Everybody knows that there is still another sister 
who has to come out,** said Posey. 

“That doesn’t matter. There is no need of thrust- 
ing it upon their attention till the last minute. I 
think girls,” said Isabel, turning to the other four, 
“that we ought to have a definite agreement about 
our places and keep them ! ” . 

Her gray eyes rested, as she uttered the last words, 
on the middle couplet of sisters, AnUle and Maud, 
who, as neither the eldest nor the youngest, generally 
fared the worst. 

“Of course Jeannette and Patty will have to be in 
the front drawing-room with their particular friends 
who receive with them. You and Maud, Annie, 
might take the library ; and I suppose I shall have 
to reign in the dining-room.” 

“It is the best place, you know it is!” chimed 
Annie and Maud in concert. “ We’ll take the dining- 
room, and let you have the library.” 


342 


afterwjlrd. 


“It would never do, girls,” said Jeannette. 

“No, I’m afraid it wotddn’t,” added Patt^". 

“We might as well be up stairs with Posey,” said 
Maud. “People will only use the library to pass 
through.” 

“Well!” said Isabel, with high determination, 
“You will have to take the library girls, or nothing 
at all. It wouldn’t look well when you are next 
older to Jeannette and Patty, for you to be in the 
dining-room.” 

“I am tired to death of being in the middle,” ex- 
claimed Annie. “I do think, Jeannette, that you and 
Patty might get married.” 

“We might, long ago! ’’said Patty, serenely, “ if we 
had not been Chubbocks. There are very few young 
men it\ New York, though, that we eould think of 
marrying. Everything has to be taken into con- 
sideration.” • 

“I don’t believe all that nonsense about the Chou- 
de-becs, Patty. I just believe you made it up out of 
the whole cloth.” 

“Really, Annie, I would be ashamed to disparage 
myself. What did Huntingdon say about our noses, 
when he was painting our dear, dead mamma’s por- 
trait? He said they were of a pronounced English 
type. I am sure that shows an old family, to say 
the least.” 


AFTERWARD. 


345 


“0, every family is an old one, or there would not 
be any people in the world. Well, I know one 
thing! said Annie, with a toss of her head, ^‘if papa 
should die and the property be divided, Maud and I 
are going off by ourselves. We’ve settled all that 
long ago, haven’t we, Maudie.” 

“ Yes, indeed ! ” 

*‘I think it is an excellent idea ! ^’ said Isabel, loftily. 
“ A -note for me, Munson ? ” 

‘Wes, Miss.” 

She took the thick, square envelope off the tra^q 
recognized Blanche Allerton’s monogram — it was 
the first note Isabel had ever received from Blanche — 
and fingered the letter a little uncertainly a second. 
She would have preferred to read it when alone, on 
account of possible questions, but impatience got the 
better of her prudence, and she tore open the en- 
velope. 

The five sisters sat in silence, their ten eyes fixed on 
her face. 

“What’s the matter, Isabel? ” asked Posey. 

“Is it a regret? ” said Annie insinuatingly. 

“ Whom is it from, Isabel ? ” said Jeannette kindly. 

“Wait till she finishes,” said Patty, as Isabel read 
and reread the letter. 

“It’s from Blanche Allerton. That’s whom it is 
from !” cried Maud triumphantly. “And she can’t 
go to drive. I told you it would be so.” 


afterward. 


n44 

“Gracious ! ” said Isabel, with a stifled breath. “ I 
wish my letters could come by private delivery.’’ 
Rising from the table, she rushed out of the room. 

“ If it is so, I think it is real mean ! ” said Posey. 

“It will do her good,’’ said Annie, unrelentingly. 

“ Yes, I like to see Isabel come up with once in a 
while,” added Maud, thoughtfully. “But I knew' 
Mrs. Allerton would stop that.” 

“I should think you w^ould consider the family 
credit first, Maud,” said Patty. “For my part, I 
tliiiik the Chubbocks much better than the 
Alier.ons.” 

“But nobody else does,” said Posey, stoutly. 

“Never admit that even to yourself, Posey,” said 
Patty, severely. “I’m sure, I’m real sorry for 
Isabel.” 

“So am I,” added Jeannette. 

“Isabel always stands up for me, and I think it’s a 
downright shame,” said Posey. 

Annie and Maud sat still. 

“ Do you suppose they will send a regret for the re- 
ception, Jeannette? ” said Posey wonderingly. 

“No, child! Mr. Allerton’s business interests are 
too much involved wdth papa’s for that. I suppose 
they will feel perfectly safe in coming to the re- 
ception. I’ll tell papa of this, though,” said 
Jeannette, with determination. “It is really a family 
matter.” 


afterward. 


345 


Isabel, meanwhile, having locked herself in her 
room, sat down to think. If she had no other merit, 
she was rigidly honest with herself in these personal 
interviews. First, she denounced herself as a great 
simpleton for telling the girls of her triumph before 
it was consummated. Secondly, she asked herself if 
it were worth while to be angry with Blanche. This 
she decided in the negative. That she would drive 
with Blanche or that Blanche should drive wdth her, 
she made up her mind then and there. Then she 
rescrutinized herself, her antecedents, her appurte- 
nances, to discover what it was, what was the par- 
ticular thing that Mrs. Allerton found objectionable. 
She allowed Blanche to call, and nothing else. 
Theater parties, lunches, visits to their country \ lace, 
one and all had been evaded or refused. What could 
she do? To win Blanche 'Allerton was to conquer 
the last in a line of social defenses that one after 
another had succumbed. 

The same young men called on her that would call 
on Blanche this winter; only this was her third 
season, and it was Blanche’s first. There was indeed 
a difference ! Her gray eyes contracted ; they almost 
closed; then they expanded. She was thinking of 
Carroll Saxby. If it were true that he was coming 
so soon, he would be back for the reception, and if! 
Then! She would be as new to Carroll as Blanche. 
She knew, as everybodvdid in the microcosmic world 


346 


AFTERWARD. 


in which her little orb revolved, that the two bright- 
est planets in their sphere were Carroll and Blanche. 
Carroll naturally, therefore, was the chief star in 
Mrs. Allerton’s horoscope. As she coined this figure 
it pleased her, and she smiled slightly. But then, 
Blanche Allerton was cold and simple, and if beauti- 
ful — bah ! 

She got up, went to the mirror, and performed a 
series of archings and smilings and pale pink flush- 
ings, of dilating eyes and tremulous lips, of nervous 
little pickings with the fingers, and cold,- statuesque 
posings, of, severe, high, unconscious, innocent 
glances, that diverted her so thoroughly that she 
forgot her grief in her art. 

When she went down stairs dressed to go out, she 
felt as indifferent and confident as she looked. 

“Where are you going, Isabel?” 

“I am going out.” 

“Tell me — tell Posey.” 

“I am going out.” She looked at Posey, her gray 
eyes shimmering with soft light, smiled as she passed 
her youngest sister, waited an instant till Annette 
appeared, and then, in another instant, was gone. 

Posey puckered her brow in discouraged admira- 
tion. She hung all her faith on Isabel. Should she 
ever be like her, with so many mysteries, so many 
engagements, such airy independence, such untold 
resources ? 


AFTERWARD. 


347 


Isabel arrived presently at Mrs, Saxby's.- 

^'Liehe Xante Saxhy, art thou alone? ” she wliis- 
pe red, going up-stairs unannounced, and in spite 
of Jasper’s remonstrances that his mistress was 
lying down, half opening the door of Mrs. Saxby’s 
room. 

“Yes, my dear, come in,” issued through the crack 
in a drowsy tone. 

The next minute, Isabel was fussing over Rebecca, 
and calling her by all sorts of German diminutives, 
as Mrs. Saxby had taken to studying German the 
last year, “on account of Carroll.” 

“You aren’t well, bliimchen.'* 

“Oh, yes; only a little tired.” Rebecca kept her 
happy secret. It seemed sweeter unspoken. 

“Are you going to the riding-school to-night ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Will you take me with you?” Isabel made a 
pretty, appealing, childish mouth. “Papa can’t go 
this week.” 

Rebecca looked perplexed. Her husband’s com- 
ments on Isabel lingered in her mind with peculiar 
force now that Carroll was home; but her natural 
amiability, as well as that mistake so many mothers 
make, that since Isabel was a girl whom she cer- 
tainly would not marry if she were a man, no son of 
hers would therefore do otherwise, led her finally to 
say “Certainly.” 


U8 


AFTERWARD. 


Isabel'iioticed the restraint, but it did not suit her 
purpose to appear to do so. What if the newspaper 
item were true, and Carroll were coming that very 
day? She covered Rebecca with kisses, sat and 
chatted a while on the coming reception, discreetly 
avoided all mention of Carroll, and presently went 
tripping down-stairs and out “ wid dem ar kittenish 
ways what air variably mischeevous,’^ as Jasper 
told Aurora, his wife, that evening in the kitchen. 

At dinner, Rebecca mentioned that Miss Chubbock 
would come at half past eight to go with them to the 
riding-school. 

“ Isabel ? ” asked John, suspending everything. 

‘‘Yes,’’ said Rebecca, nervously. 

Carroll looked from one parent to the other, 
much amused. 

“The papers will have it that Carroll and sbe are 
engaged.’’ 

“Nonsense,” said Rebecca. “If Carroll prefers, he 
can stay at home,” but her voice trembled, and she 
looked at him appealingly. 

“I shall do no such thing, mater piilchrissima mia. 
It makes no difference to me if they say I am engaged 
to Isabel.” 

“Yes it does,” said John, getting up and pacing 
the floor, while Jasper’s flaring ebony ears drank in 
this sweet morsel of gossip for Aurora. “Why, it 
would be a feather in that little rogue’s cap that she 


AFTERWARD. 


349 


would. flutter in everybody’s face all winter. You 
w'^ould almost have to become engaged to Isabel, if 
such a rumor got afloat.” 

“Come, come, father, I wouldn’t stay at home 
under any consideration, now. I do not suppose 
that Isabel knows I am home.” 

“Yes she does,” said Jobn, grimly. “She has pri- 
vate telephonic connections with every social event 
in New York — or appears to have. What made you 
say she could go with you, Rebecca? You do not 
often do a foolish thing,” he added, mollifying, for at 
the least sign of tears on her part over any affair in 
which they differed, his vexation melted completely. 

At this juncture, the far-away trill of the electric 
door-bell gave warning of Isabel’s approach. 

“Close the doors to the drawing-room, Jasper.” 

Isabel did not know that Carroll had arrived, 
but, as her boots struck the marble tiling of the hall 
as she pattered after Jasper to the library, she was 
imagining what an enviable condition of affairs it 
would be, if only he were back and were to accom- 
pany them to the club. She was pursuing all the 
issues of such a happy conjunction, while standing 
beside the library table under the full glare of the 
gas, when the sound of approaching voices made her 
look up. 

She was certainly extremely pretty and distingue, 
standing there under the golden light. Her dark 


350 


afterward. 


blue habit, fitting without a wrinkle, set oflf the full 
but delicate outlines of her figure. The square riding 
hat harmonized with the retrousse nose and short 
upper lip. The color of her costume made her clear 
skin look like ivory. When she was thoroughly 
pleased no face could be softer, and yet its intellectu- 
ality and shrewdness were never veiled. It was this 
odd mixture of contradictory expressions which 
gave her an immense piquancy. Her gray eyes 
looked black in their mild composure, and they as- 
sumed an honest and beautifying expression, as 
Carroll walked in with his mother. 

He thought her undeniably pretty and American, 
and, like every other man who met her, had an in- 
stant unexplainable impression that she was the 
kind of woman to get on amazingly well with in a 
tHe-a-tHe. 

“Really, Mr. Carroll,” said Isabel, extending her 
hand, for whose immaculate glove she inwardly 
thanked her kindly fates, “this is a great surprise. 
IF/zen did you arrive?” 

“This. morning.” 

“And you never told me!” said Isabel, flushing 
over what she instantly interpreted as the happy 
significance of Rebecca’s silence. “I feel like an in- 
truder, and I am sure I am one. Do send me home, 
Mrs. Saxby.” 

John could have groaned. If she were sent home, 
Carroll would have to accompany her; if she went 


AFTERWARD. 


351 


to the riding-school, why, he would accompany her 
there. Isabel had both horns of the dilemma in her 
hands, and she was the girl to take the utmost ad- 
vantage other position. 

She felt delightfully collected and victorious. 

** You will not interfere with our pleasure in the 
least, Isabel,’’ said Rebecca. “This is the best even- 
ing, too. The Allerton’s will be there and several 
others whom Carroll will enjoy meeting, and all of 
whom I think you know.” 

“0, I know Blanche Allerton very well,” said 
Isabel with insinuating tones of great intimacy. 
Blanche and I were to have driven together this 
afternoon, but it was too raw and windy. These 
high winds always give me a sore throat.” She 
arched her white neck above her shining collar and 
felt it as if it were really a little tender now. 

“Perhaps you ought not to go out again to-night,” 
said John, who did not believe a word about the 
drive. 

“0, yes; I came up in a close carriage, and it is 
only a step down to the school.” 

“Well, Isabel, we will leave you to talk with Mr. 
Saxby, and Carroll and I will go to get ready.” 

When John and Isabel were thus left alone, they 
gazed at each other steadfastly a second. Neither 
spoke, for fear the other would have the advantage. 
Isabel was not afraid of Mr. Saxby, but she felt like 


352 


AFTERWARD. 


acting cautiously in his presence. Mr. Saxby 
watched her as he would a cat who supposed herseU 
free to play any prank she chose. Just now, Isabel 
chose to be coy and simple, and yet to act as if Mr. 
Saxby could of course meet with no other young girl 
quite so desirable. She was aware that this was 
Patty’s stage trick, but then Patty was not there to 
emphasize the imitation. 

“Did\"Ousee last night’s Post ? ” said John sud- 
denly. 

‘‘No,” replied Isabel, softhq — ther, after a pause, 
“ Was there anything special in it ? ” 

“An item on your approaching reception, and 
quite a lengthy paragraph on Carroll’s expected ar- 
rival to-day.” 

“ Ah ? ” said Isabel. Her lips remained parted, and 
her eyes met John’s with soft inquiry. Then, inno- 
cently, “Were they in the same column near to- 
gether? I want to look them up.” 

“I don’t remember. I suppose they came under 
personals. Everybody down-town seemed to know 
that Carroll was home, because of that paragraph. 
But we are very much honored in having the first 
call from you.” 

Did Mr. Saxby mean to tease her or to compliment 
her? Or did he intend to be rude? She suspected 
the last, and accordingly murmured in the most 
dulcet tones : 


AFTERWARD. 


353 


“You receive me so charmingly here, always, that 
it is no wonder I chance to be the first, although, 
Mr. Saxby, if 1 had known, I should have preferred 
to see him in my own home. But everybody will be 
delighted to welcome him back.” She threw this 
last bonmot at John’s paternal appetite for praise. 
However, even that had been satiated during the 
afternoon, so that he only replied, “Humph!” 

Rebecca and Carroll entered presently, and then 
the trio departed, leaving John to “chew the cud of 
bitter thought.” That it was very bitter, may be 
surmised from the fact that he doubled up his fat fist 
and shook it after Isabel as she went out of the front 
door. 

The riding-school was gay with light and horses, 
Jockeys, and a party of twenty who made up the 
club for that evening. There were the Allertons, the 
Brouxes, the Wylies, and the Kittredges. They all 
saw Isabel come in with Carroll. 

Her heart gave one glad little hot bump against 
her side, as Mrs. Allerton adjusted her glasses and 
frowned on her at a distance. There was Blanche, 
too. Was she dying of envy ? Isabel wondered. She 
just hoped she was. Everybody came up to shake 
hands, and there stood Carroll between his mother 
and her, as if he belonged to them both. Isabel 
smiled and flushed, and looked up into Carroll’s face 
and then down on the floor with such ar pretty 


354 


AFTERWARD. 


personal interest in all the congratulations, and 
Carroll had so forgotten her for the moment, that 
she could dare go on playing this part with more and 
more abandonment, until Mrs. Kittredge, who prided 
herself on finding out cver^" engagement as soon as it 
was made, whispered to Mrs. Wylie, so that Isabel 
heard, “that it was very evident that there was 
some understanding between Isabel Chubbock and 
Carroll Saxby, but it was a pity that she was so 
elated that she could not hide her feelings better.’’ 

What cared Isabel, now that she had set the ball 
rolling? She only hoped that the thrilling news 
would reach Mrs. Allerton’s ears that very night. 

Carroll stood by while she was mounted, glanced 
with involuntary admiration at her carriage as she 
started off round the ring, and presently, his mother 
being mounted also, he sprang to his horse and was 
at Isabel’s side in another instant, where she took 
care to keep him for the next few minutes. 

“She has a wonderful pair of eyes,” thought 
Carroll, as she looked straight into his; “clear and 
cool, and green as a wave in mid-ocean tipping up 
high and thin toward the sunlight.’’ 

“ Do’you ever ride in the park. Miss Isabel ? ” 

“0, yes, with papa, often.” 

Her glance softened. Her full under lip trembled 
with a prett}^ expectancy. 

“ Do you think your father would trust you to ride 
with me ? ” 


AFTERWARD. 


355 


“I am quite sure, if you will ask him. These 
autumn days before it gets too cool are lovely.” 

She looked at him again, until, yielding to her 
strong volition, he asked her to set a day. 

“Thursday !” she said, thoughtfully, “at four?” 
That was the day and the hour at which Blanche 
and her mother invariabh’ rode. 

Carroll bowed, and soon went back to his 
mother. 

“My dear,” said Rebecca, “I wish you would show 
Blanche Allerton a little attention.” 

“I will, presently. Isabel has a delightful faculty 
of making a fellow feel at home with her.” 

“This is her third season,” said Rebecca sign fi- 
cantly. 

“That makes her all the more interesting to r, e. 
She has nothing further to learn. A man may meet 
her more on his own footing.” 

“My dear! ” expostulated Rebecca. 

Carroll smiled. He had spoken a personal truth. 
With Rosalia in his memory, Isabel Chubbock was 
just the kind of girl to fill the gap which had yawned 
in his conscience of late, 

Blanche Allerton looked as pure but as cold as 
snow, he thought, as he finally went forward, during 
a recess, to pay his respects to the much talked of 
and much adverttsed beauty. The papers had, for a 
year, contained numerous items anent Blanche’s 


356 


AFTERWARD. 


charms. He had to admit, while he w^as talking 
wdth her, that she was undeniably beautiful and win- . 
ning, A deep dimple in her left cheek seemed to 
gather and dispense the waves of fleeting pink chas- 
ing one another up and down her face. Her flaxen 
hair rose from her white neck in natural waves, and 
a vagrant curl, which the riding had set loose, flut- 
tered with the movement of her fan. Her smile wa.s 
un affected and her voice sweet, and although she 
agreed with everything he said, apparentlj^ he 
judged, for want of original ideas of her own, still he 
had a better time than he had expected. What she 
failed to say, her mother made up. Carroll found 
Mrs. Allerton infinitely spicy and agreeable. He had 
committed himself to an early call on the Allertons, 
also, before leaving. 

Shortly after this interview, the Allertons found 
themselves unexpectedly beside Isabel. Mrs. Allerton 
had dexterously avoided even recognizing that young 
lady all the evening. 

Isabel turned to Blanche and said unconcernedly, 
“So sorry about that drive ! I think you are very 
imprudent to be out to-night! ” 

“0, this is quite different to being exposed an hour 
or more to a raw outside air,” said Mrs. Allerton, 
“and of course Blanche knew that you would not 
have been willing to be boxed in an air-tight coupe.” 

“Yes, I would,” said Isabel, with the greate. t 
s weetness, “for the sake of being with Blanche.” 


AF i'EKWARb. 


Blaticlie stole her hand into Isabel’s, and gave it a 
little squeeze. 

“We have never seen yon here on Monday evening 
before! “ said Mrs. Allerton, icily. 

“It has been the merest chance,” said Isabel, airih'. 
“Ofcour.se, I could come wdth dear Mrs. Saxb}' often, 
il I chose, but then I am devoted to papa, and he 
much prefers Friday. Papa is more exclusive than I 
am,” and Isabel turned toward Mrs. Allerton with a 
deprecating smile, as if she really could not help her- 
self for not being there oftener on Monday. 

Mrs. Allerton was silenced momentarily by her 
audacity. Did not everyone know that the Monday 
class was an aristocratic monopoly that defended its 
privileges and rights armed cap-a-pie? Here was 
this daughter of a parvenu money manipulator, 
whose millions as yet were not fixed beyond sudden 
loss, relegating her to an inferior position. 

“You must ask your father to explain the origin 
and history of the riding-school.” 

“0, he has done that. I think he is very foolish to 
own a fifth of the stock in such a changing concern. 
Papa is very much like Mr. Allerton — so fond of 
horses that even a riding-school bewitches him. 
Aren’t men funny creatures, Mrs. Allerton ? Always 
having to be amused. Why, if a man’s wife dies he 
has to be amused out of his grief! ” 


358 


Ai^TERWARD. 


Isabel’s lithe frame became convulsed with a laugh 
that found po other outlet than a silvery giggle. 

Ah, I see Mrs. Saxby coming for me, so I must 
go. Good-night, Mrs. Allerton. Au revoir, dearest 
Blanche.’* 

She advanced far enough to prevent Carroll from a 
second interview with the Allertons. 

“I saw all at once that Mrs. Saxby was waiting,” 
she said, glancing toward Rebecca. “And how 
weary you must be, and just off the steamer this 
morning. I suppose it is your German strength that 
keeps you from looking the least bit tired.” 

She glanced at his great breadth of shoulders ad- 
miringly. “One could fancy you a Saxon as well as 
a Saxby. Here I am, Mrs. Saxby, at last ! ” 


CHAPTER III. 


UP-STAIRS, DOWN-STAIRS, IN MY LADY’S CHAMBER. 

A STARRY, windy, bitter night in December. Piles 
of dirty, lava-like snow obstructing gutters and 
heaped along the side-walks. A fitful, uncanny moan 
through telegraph wires laid sixty deep past the 
fronts of somber brown-stone houses. Cold every- 
where outside. Warmth from — ° to 75° Fahrenheit 
inside. The complex roar, and sudden, momentary 
hush of street life from the Battery to the park. Life 
barely existent in many tenement-house districts; 
aggressively active in the nerve-ganglia of hotel 
centers ; aesthetically progressive in mansions vdth 
Queen Anne exteriors, French chateau fronts looming 
suddenly from prosaic flagged side-walks, or square, 
semi-Florentine lower stories, brightened by win- 
dows and doors resplcrident with stained glass 
ornate enough to tempt mediaeval ecclesiastical 
iconoclasts. Poverty' and wealth outside, elbowing 
each other from river to river. Inside, poverty in 
enforced seclusion between clammy, filth-,staincd 

359 


360 


Al-TKKWAKD, 


walls; wealth luxuriating beside open fires, under- 
neath painted, or mahogany ribbed or tapestry hung 
ceilings. Two worlds — as near and yet as far 
apart as the places whence the wind cometh and 
whither it goeth. 

A spirit of reluctance to coming face to face with 
misery we cannot help, and, from that universal pro- 
pensity to at least see and hear the best and bright- 
est and most beguiling, let us turn our backs on the 
city east of Third and west of Seventh avenues, leave 
politicians, the homeless rich, the demi-monde and 
theater-goers in and near the hotels, and, unbidden 
and unsuspected, enter the Saxby home, which is one 
of the largest, the newest, and the most elaborate of 
the mansions near the park. 

Carroll had been home now two weeks, long 
enough for the glamor of absence to wear off, and 
for the thousand and one shades of character which 
family relations reveal to assert themselves as ag- 
gressively in the son as they were wont to do in the 
father. 

John had spent money lavishly and unquestion- 
ingly upon Carroll till he was “through,” but, like 
many another self-made man, as soon as “finis ” was 
appended to these years of study and travel, he had 
expected to see indications of infallible and immedi- 
ate greatness. 


afterward. 


36i 

Carroll had no ambitions that commended them- 
selves to his father. To frequent the clubs, to drive 
v^ith his mother, to spend an hour or two a day in 
the library, and to make a study of yachts with a 
view^ to having one built were his chief aims. 

He was the onh^ son. There was already an al- 
most fabulous fortune accumulated. By und by he 
would marry, have an establishment of his own, live 
like a gentleman of leisure, — such men were sadly 
wanting in America, — and take care of what his 
father had amassed. In the course of time, perhaps 
he would write a book on a scientific subject he had 
in mind if no one got ahead of him in the meanwhile 

Father and son were seated in the library reading, 
each rather uncomfortably conscious of the other. 
John’s rudd}^ countenance was irritable, as he looked 
from time to time at the scholarly, but nonchalant 
and irresolute profile opposite. 

Carroll was reading an article by Sir Lei pel Giffen, 
on America, and thinking that the English lord’s 
views were unfortunateh" only too true. 

After awhile, Mr. Saxby got up and began to pace 
the floor, his arms folded behind his back, his eyes 
uplifted to the ceiling ribbed into square compart- 
ments by oak beams, each compartment containing 
a delicate fresco. His feet luxuriated in the soft pile 
of the golden brown Wilton. He wasperfectly satis- 
fied with the frieze surmounting the brown walls; 


362 


At^TEKWARLf. 


the Greek chorus singers dancing there, hand in 
hand, in low relief, stirred some vague sense of har- 
mony in his business soul. At all events, the frkze 
had been copied from a ruin in Greece, and must be 
the “correct thing.’’ The oaken chairs were hand- 
carved. The great oak center table had been made 
to order. The low book-cases with their soft brown 
plush hangings on bright brass rails were stored 
with the classics. The portraits of himself and his 
wife, painted by Huntingdon, showed, well relieved, 
against the brown walls. Plush hangings in the 
same subdued, warm color, brightened with marocn 
bands adorned a huge bay window and the doors. 
A couple of hickory logs burned steadily in the deep 
fire-place, above which towered an ornately carved 
oak mantel with all manner of recesses which Tiffany 
had filled “suitably for a library.” Nothing was 
wanting, and, since the fiat had gone forth from 
architect, upholsterer, and decorative art critic that 
the room was finished, it had remained finished to 
John Saxby’s entire satisfaction. 

That was a wholesome quality of his prosaic, 
honest, ostentatious nature, that what was once his 
remained in statu quo and unceasingly dear as time 
rolled on. His wife could rest perfectly sure that, 
with each added year, her beauty would enhance 
and her virtues increase to her husband, for — she 
was his wife. 


AFTERWARto. 


363 


Carroll furtively watched his father, noting what 
he inwardly termed the money-making temperament, 
as he studied the aggressive front, keen, shrewd blue 
eyes, firmly set, complacent mouth, and sturdy, dog- 
matic stride. 

If Carroll had only been a bona fide genius, the 
father reflected, he would have had nothing to say. He 
wanted a son whom he could not only be proud of 
himself, but whom other fathers down-town would 
envy. There was a quality about this boy up-town, 
that often set him in the back-ground. When his son 
was talking, John — his love of being heard and being 
firct getting the better of his politeness — might 
break in and raise his voice and increase his authori- 
tative tone, and interject, “Now/ think,’’ “J am 
convinced,” and “Will you listen to me!” in vain. 
Men and women nodded and smiled at him in an 
aside, but continued to listen to Carroll. John had 
felt once or twice during the past fortnight, that 
while it was he who gave the dinners, it was Carroll 
who was considered the host. But the next day he 
roared louder than usual down-town, brought 
Rebecca a new jew^el or vase, and, altogether, spent a 
mint of money. No hostility existed between father 
and son as yet, although they were very critical of 
each other. John would have suffered as great a 
sense of deprivation and loss of importance if Carroll 
had left his roof while a bachelor as he would if he 


364 


APTERWARC. 


had gotten np some fine morning and found that his 
entire parlor floor had disappeared. After all, there 
were lots of English lords very much such men as 
Carroll. 

“ Carroll, you ought to get married/’ 

“ There is no such thigg as ‘ ought ’ without oppor- 
tunity.” 

“Goodness gracious! Opportunity!” said John, 
leaning his elbow dangerously near a royal Dresden 
vase on one of the book cases, and contracting his 
round, florid brow. “There is Mrs. Hawley Thorn- 
bed — handsome, without relations, thirty thousand 
a year, and a widow at twenty-one.” 

“She is too much of a Rubens.” 

“She is said to look like your mother! ” said John 
warmly. 

“Come now, father. Leave mother out of tlie 
discussion, or I won’t say another word.” 

John pulled his vest down aggressively. Swallow- 
ing a desire to expatiate on Mrs. Saxby’s charms, he 
said, “You are old enough, Carroll.” 

Carroll rose from his chair, saying, as he stretched 
his arms out with a sleepy yawn, “How w uld you 
like me to marry Miss Isabel? ” 

“Don’t you dare ! ” John faced him squarely. 

“Or Miss Allerton.” 

“You know very well what I would say to such a 
marriage. I would do something very handsome 


AFTERWARD. 


365 


for you, Carroll. Nothin" would please 3^our 
mother better.” 

* “She is to be considered,” said Carroll, whose 
affection for his mother was deep. Then, laughing 
good-naturedly, he said, “Time enough after I am 
thirty; good-night.” 

Mrs. Saxby’s sitting-room-' was in th extension 
and over the dining-room. It was spacious, sunny, 
and elegant. But on this winter night, the curtains 
were drawn to shut out the suspicion of a draft, the 
gas blazed in the chandelier, a mellow light streamed 
over a little table drawn up near the grate from an 
amber-shaded duplex burner, and on either side of 
this table, their slippered feet stretched out on the 
fender, sat Rebecca and Madeline, engaged in earnest 
conversation. 

Mrs. Saxby looked as though she might have been 
one of the superb paintings in the ceiling medallions 
at Versailles, endued with life and transplanted to a 
New York mansion. 

A dressing-gown of white cashmere with* facings of 
lavender silk was loosely tied around her full form 
and parted over an embroidered petticoat, revealing 
two small feet, looking still smaller in black silk 
stockings that fitted like a glove. Her plump, 
dimpled white hands were ablaze with jewels — 
diamonds, emitting blue lights, a ruby set with 
pearls, a great gold snake with emerald eyes, that 


366 


AFTERWARD. 


coiled around one finger from knuckle to knuckle. 
Huge solitaires sparkled in her ears. The silver pins 
in her auburn hair caught the light. Her soft, red- 
dish-brown eyes, so rare and yet so beautiful, and 
too often, but not always, fitted to a character like 
that of Phillip TI. of Escurial fame, beamed kindly and 
affectionately beneath'lids whose long lashes curled 
upward and gave an alert, frank expression to an 
otherwise heavy face. The white, double chin merged 
into a full, round throat that had a rich, ivory fair- 
ness. The thin, arched nose indicated the curving 
upper lip that rested sweetly into the full roundness 
of the lower one, and betrayed pride, generosity and 
amiability. John Saxby’s wife was truly very hand- 
some. 

“I want to stay, Rebecca. You entertain so much, 
though, that I am sorely afraid that there would be 
times when my lack of interest in society, as well as 
the awkward circumstances of my past history, 
might embarrass you. As far as you and I are con- 
cerned, nothing of course could be pleasanter.’’ 

She clasped her hands loosely in her lap. A slightly 
anxious, questioning expression subdued her features, 
and she gazed into the fire till the heat and light 
suddenly suffused her eyes with tears. 

“I really want yon to spend the winter with me, 
Madeline, very, very much. These other matters 


AFTERWARD. 


367 


YOU mention wouldn’t affect John and me in the 
least. John and I are strong enough to stand by you 
socially.” 

“I am not thinking of myself at all, Rebecca. I 
have no social ambitions. I wish I had. Of course, 
much of this ostracism will disappear like magic, 
when my marriage is announced. My fear is that, 
till then, I shall embarrass you when I come in con- 
tact with people who have hurt me, and who will 
try to do so again. If you and John won’t suffer 
vicariously for me. I’ll stay. I would like to stay — 
till I am married.” 

“That is a dear, good Madeline.” Rebecca dropped 
from her low chair, leaned her face against Madeline’s, 
and kissed her. 

Madeline had keenly realized since her return that 
she was one of those women on whom society, feel- 
ing that it had been over kind in the beginning, in- 
tended to revenge itself by showing no mercy in the 
conclusion. Society, on its part, would not allow 
her her old place, and, on hers, she had not the 
slightest desire to resume a position that depended 
so little on personal value. 

You have seen some frail, beautiful object tossed 
out upon the ocean. There it rocks with thecaprices 
of the waves, bending, gliding, leaping, app rently 
breasting with ease the topmost crest, the da ling ot 
water, wind and sunshine. Then, suddenly, some 


368 


AFTERWARD. 


unseen, unfelt force below the sunlight and the wind, 
perhaps the momentum gained from all these joys of 
the past, lifts up a green and watery wall with a 
white crest like the froth of an angry mouth, and 
down goes that tiny, daring, happy thing, water- 
soaked and broken beyond remedy. The world, in 
short, said that Mrs. Winchester had suffered such a 
shipwreck. Madeline did not feel herself in this sorry 
plight. She felt that she had indeed gone down into 
a grave, but there are resurrections of which the 
merely social world knows nothing. 

There was a handful of friends, however, whom 
change, misfortune, even absence, that worst of all 
enemies to tlie warmth of our general affections, now 
that Madeline showed herself companionable, could 
not shake off. Tiiese became suddenly tenfold dearer 
from force of contrast with the great army who had 
forgotten her. 

She presented a strong contrast to Rebecca. Her 
figure, while tall and rounded, gave an impression of 
extreme fragility. Her hands had an irregular out- 
line and strength of grasp, indicating immense emo- 
tional vitality. The blue veins stood up occasional! v 
on those hands and made a network of azure fila- 
ments on the wrists. Her fingers were destitute of 
rings. Even her wedding ring was absent. Her 
abundant, iron gray hair, parted, and rolled back on 
cither side of her temjfies with flexible, wavy fullness, 


AFTERWARD. 


369 


ivvcaled her rather square forehead softened bv 
straight, delieate brows. A sparkling, hazel eye, a 
fair and colorless skin, a large mouth whose expres- 
sion altered with every change of thought, but was 
very sweet and strong withal, made her more than 
merely handsome, and suggested that strength of 
will and enthusiasm of temperament which lighten 
every discouragement. Her face, in repose, wore the 
gravity which accompanies bitter experiences, how- 
ever buoyantly or bravely they may have been 
borne. 

After Madeline had gone to her own room, and' 
when Mr. and Mrs. Saxby, pleased with both them- 
selves and the world, had fallen asleep, a bright light 
still burned in the cavernous depths 6f the basement, 
where kitchen, laundry, drying-rooms and servants’ 
rooms stretched out in endless length, for Jasper, and 
Aurora the cook, who was also his wife, were just 
settling down to a cozy review of the “goings on” 
up-stairs during the day. What Wall street was to 
Mr. Saxby, and her social world to Mrs. Saxby, 
“up-stairs” was to Jasper and Aurora. 

Jasper, black enough to be funereally stylish, was 
as well matched to Aurora in color as were Mrs. 
Saxby’s carriage horses. These two worthies sat 
opposite each other in front of the kitchen range, 
whose red-hot surface and open dampers gave no indi- » 
cation of “shutting up.” 

24 


370 


AFTERWARD. 


Aurora’s straight-backed Boston rocker, orna- 
mented wdth a silk tidy in crazy work design, had for 
its immediate back-ground the huge copper hot 
water boiler, burnished till its resplendent color cast 
a swarthy glow across her broad, hanging, dusky 
cheeks, and paled the yellow of the great gold hoops 
in her ears. Vast in proportions, straight as an 
arrow, a gay red and blue bandanna twisted like a 
towering crown over her crinkled locks, a long, full 
white apron* covering her capacious lap, plain gold 
rings, as many in number as Mrs. Saxby’s more 
ornate ones, circling her ebon fingers, Aurora rocked 
slowly and looked at Jasper with a kind of inflexible 
attention, much as if he were lier daily paper, while 
he gave her his tid-bits of gossip. 

She might have been called the commentator on the 
acts of the Saxbys. • 

“We’s wid a pow’ful nice family, Rora; no use 
talkin’ — we is! ” 

Jasper stuck one fist in the other, and closed his 
thick lips together with a fac-simile of the dogmatic, 
complacent smile of his master. 

“Toe be shore, taint like de place we come from; 
but den agin, dey aint bin billionaires long enough 
toe git stingy. Dey do mighty onst^dish tings some- 
times, an’ never know it, nuther. But, on de hull, 
Rora, I b’lieve we’d better ’cide toe stav wid de new 
marsr an’ misstiss anuder year.” 


AFTERWARD. 


371 


“We aint never bin axed yit to stay a year. T like 
seasons better, Jasper, anyway. I likes de independ- 
cnc-e of a month’s notice on boff sides. White folks 
aint like black folks. No trustin’ em! Deys so mighty 
chang’ble. Dey like Spitz dogs. Better always be a 
watchin’ fur h3^draphoby. Den 3"ou aint tuk by sup- 
prise. So long’s Mrs. Saxby stays out’n de kitchen, 
an’ pays me thirt3^ dollars a month, an’ ’low^s me a 
scullian, an’ axes no questions bout m3' comin’s an’ 
goin’s, an’ keeps me warm, I aint got no fault to 
find wid her. But, doe she got good ’nough antecc-r 
dens, he haint none — no more’n dat yaller maid up 
stairs. I’d be black or I’d be white!” Aurora 
rocked more rapidly and rolled her small black e3^es 
under her ebon fleshy brows, till the wdiites shone. 

“Wall, yaller girls is one ob de lingerin’ effecs ab 
de paternal conflic’ ’tween de Norf an’ de Souflf. We 
mus’ ’low dem time ter die out, an’ be considerate 
while dey is a doin’ of it. De new wis’tor aint 
brought no maid, but my, Rora! What a step she 
have! High an’ soft an’ glidin’, all in one. She do 
look mighty fine cornin’ down dat broad staircase. 
She be a madame I’d like to call my missus. No pore 
white trash ’bout her. I’d like to stan’ behind her 
chair jes to have her look at me out’n dose bird-like 
starry eyes wid a second’s glance when she gib an 
order. She mighty stylish an’ imposin’.” 

“ What she wear ? ” 


372 


AFTERWARD. 


“Dere you has me, Rora. Nuthin’ oncommon. 
She wear herself mighty fine. She mek 3'’o tink dat 
close is quite onnessar\'.” 

“What she have on to-da^^?” said Aurora with 
grave persistency. 

“ Lem ’me tink.” 

Jasper covered his face with his hands, his deep, 
pink nails as carefully paired and mooned as if they 
were his chief occupation. “Now I kin allers tell 
you widout tinkin’, you knows I kin, Rora, what 
Miss Saxb^' wears; but dis Miss Winchester, dat’s 
her name, any wav — ole Yirginnv name, I reckon — 
I tink she wear black. Yes,” cogitatively, “she do 
wear black,” 

“ Wid crape? ” 

.“I don’ know,” said Jasper despairingly. 

“ Wall, \'ou be observin’. Me down here a glowerin’ 
an’ a blinkin’ over pots an’ cookin’ all day long. An 
you right dere ’mong folks, an’ no news wuth listenen’ 
toe. What yore elephant ears foe, but listenen’ ? 
What dose saucer eyes o’ ^^ourn foe but seein’? I’ll 
sarve up-stairs ter-morrer, an’ yoe kin doe de cookin’. 
What dey say ’bout young Mars Saxby cornin’ 
back from Europe? De yaller girl say she never see 
sich airs, not sense she wuz born, as dat young man 
has.” 

“Dey aint sed nuffin’ of great account when I 
bin widin bearin’ distance, dat I know. Hisma tink 


AFTERWARD. 


373 


him (le an^el Gal^ril, but his pa don’ tink him an angel 
at all. I clid’n hear dat, but I seed it, tro de pantrv 
door. What voe tink o’ mv sas.sers now?” 

“When Miss Saxby gwine give dat lunch party 
yoe bin ’ticipatin since Christmas ? ” 

”Nex’ week. An’ Rora, she say toe me, she do, ‘I 
b’lieve I got a cook who kin do some tings better’n 
Pinard or Maresi.’” 

“I reckin I kin. An’ I reckin dat Italy man’d make 
a heap o’ money out’n some o’ my dishes. But I 
s’posc, arter all, doe she like wimrain’s cookin’ cause 
it got a nateral taste, when de time come she’ll tek 
dem furrin mixters cose dey Inks so mysterous, an’ 
gib you a little moe praise’n usial fur yoe wife. 
Whan a missus does a extra heap o’ praisin’, she 
either wants suffin out’n de bargin, or she mighty on- 
s itisfied wid her cook. I knows ’em.” 

“Pears toe me, Rora, honey, you’se tired out.” 

“Pears to me, Jasper, you’d better go to bed. 
You’se a nigger wid a uncommon heap o’ sense some- 
times, but it do desart yoe whenever yoe have a real 
good chance to aggravate a wife who’d like toe be 
proud of you. Go to bed, Jasper, an’ git up right 
side foremost in de mornin’.” 

“ When you a cornin’, Rora ? ” 

“When I git r..*ady. I isn’t sleepy. I’se toe dir^- 
couraged wid yoe toe tink of sleep dis hour yit.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE CHTOBOCK RECEPTION. 

The cl for the reception arrived. It was clear 
and cold and brilliant, as behooved the tenth of Jan- 
uary. The entire Cbubbock household was astir at 
an unprecedentedly early hour. 

Even Posey, having caught a spirit of upheaval 
and special decoration, had gone to bed, for the first 
time in her life, with her straight bang in curlpapers, 
and had awakened with a feeling of such cranial 
degeneration that she vowed never to be so silly 
again. Isabel laughed at her for her pains, since she 
was not to be seen. But there is a period in a girl’s 
life when the fairest thing on earth to her is herself; 
the waving bang that appeared on Posey’s round 
forehead would have been ample reward for her 
trouble if only her hfead had not ached. There were 
two things that Posey could not endure — physical 
pain and physical exertion. So at breakfast she was 
so cross that all the sisters let fly their arrows at 
her expense, and ended by making a perfect little 
fury of her. 


87 A 


AFTERWARD. 


375 


Isabel awoke executive. Well did the servants 
understand this frame of mind. 

Maud and Annie repaired to the library, and 
walked about with that uncertain, dissatisfied air 
that a hen has wdien she goes out on a raw winter 
morning to glean an uncertain nibble. Why they 
allowed themselves to be so dominated they did not 
know; and yet, when Isabel suddenly dashed into 
the room with one of Klunder’s men to plan the 
floral decoration, they sprang asunder, much as two 
peaceful fowls do who have been cawing in bleak 
solitude, when some lordly rooster with head at one 
side and wing trailing on the ground, suddenly in- 
vades their conversation. 

Patty was wandering around aimlessly, appar- 
ently, but she was laying the Chubbock history 
now here, now there, trying to find a place where it 
would meet the attention of guests, unobtrusively, 
as it were, but irresistibly. 

Jeannette was calling first from one room and then 
another, ‘‘Girls, I want to ask you something; girls, 
we have no time to lose; girls, here.comes Sopsy, the 
upholsterer.” 

“Girls, girls, girls! ” said Isabel, at last, in vexa- 
tion. “Do stop saying that horrid word, Jeannette, 
and call the one you want. Annie and Maud are no 
use. Posey is in a pout, and Patty is sentimentaliz- 
ing over the Chubbock history. Look at her eyes. 


576 


AFTER WAR t). 


She won’t be fit for a thing for the next hour, but a 
lunatic asylum. What is it 3^ou want, Jeannette? ” 

“I want a hundred things. All these people are 
here to tear up the house, and there is no one to 
help me.” 

“Well, I’m here.” 

“Where do 3^ou think those potted pink azaleas 
should go ? ” 

‘‘ 0 , they are placed already on the libraiw mantel,” 
said Isabel contemptuously. “The daisies go next, 
and a bank of smilax, mosses, and ferns make an 
edge. The palms will stand in the fire-place. I 
planned that before I went to sleep last night. 
Klunder’s men are arranging it now.” 

“I am sure, Maud and Annie, that you ought to be 
satisfied with this background,” said Jeannette, witli 
sovereign graciousness. 

“I’d rather have a row of dandelion and choose 
them myself,” said Maud. 

Isabel turned from surveying the floral decoration, 
glared at Maud, and then beckoned to Sopsy, who, 
with red face and distended veins, was trying to push 
a heavy cabinet to the door. 

“Wait a second for hel]). You will scrape the carv- 
ing, if you don't take care. Here, Munson, take 
hold. We shall make you responsible, Mr. Sopsy, 
for any breakage or damage,” 

The upholsterer stopped his straining an instant, 
glanced at Isabel with timid obedience while mop- 


AFTERWARD. 


37 ? 


ping his face, and said pantingh', ‘‘Yes, Miss.” The 
Chubbock moving was a new order, and poor Sopsv 
was almost wrenching his meager little body 
asunder to get as much work into an hour as possi- 
ble. 

The cook now appeared in the drawing-room, cast- 
ing furtive glances at the belongings of the floor 
above her own as one might imagine some humble 
spirit suddenly transported to heaven would examine 
its splendor. 

“Please, Miss,” addressing Isabel, “there is alotof 
men, mum, down-stairs, come to set out the dishes, 
and to arrange fur the service. They say, mum, 
the\^ be Mazzetti’s men.” 

“0, yes,” said Isabel, hurrying down the basement 
stairs, the fat cook slowly waddling after. Down 
the long hall she sped. She threw open the door of 
the laundry. 

“See if this will do. You can use the tubs as tables. 
The kitchen tables can be brought in, too.” 

“This ’ill do, ma’am. Can we lay our things out 
right away ? ” 

“Yes, right away. Send for Miss Isabel,” she or- 
dered, on leaving, “if you are in doubt about any- 
thing. I will be up stairs.” She did not propose 
that any one but herself should attend to Mazzetti. 


378 


AFTHRWAKt). 


Halfway up the stairs, she met Sopsy and Munson 
with a huge, carved table of solid oak careening over 
their heads. 

“There goes a corner into the wall paper, c-a-r-e- 
ful ! ” in the tones of a commander. 

“ Was this light-footed, imperial piece of humanity 
everywhere? Sopsy wondered. 

Isabel looked back. The front basement doors were 
closed. She flew down, opened them, and stood in- 
side till the precious table was on terra firma. 

“Don’t let any two pieces touch each other, Mr. 
Sopsy. I shall examine everyone myself, to see if 
there are any injuries. Go about your own work, 
now, Munson, and let Mr. Sopsy ’s men help. Every- 
thing goes in here, Mr. Sopsy.” 

“Yes, Miss.” Sopsy bowed almost double. 

“ Isabel,” called Jeannette, in stifled tones. 

“Well?” said Isabel, as she reached thehead of the 
stairs. “What now?” 

“ Do go in and settle Maud and Annie. They have 
been growling and grumbling in the bay window, 
till I can’t stand it any longer.” - 

Isabel looked at Jeannette with a toss of her 
head. 

“’Pears to me, Jeannette, T ought to have been 
born the eldcvSt. Come along. Has Patty recovered 
her senses yet ? ” 


AFTERWARD. 


379 


STie marcbed toward tbe bay window wl ere a low, 
dissatisfied murmur crept out from behind the 
heavy curtains. She parted the curtains abruptly. 
“What is the matter now, girls 

Ppr answer, Maud and Annie kept their eyes 
iveted on a black cat sitting curled in a soft ball on 
a sunny part of the fence. 

“ What is the matter, girls ? ** repeated Isabel with 
cmpressement. 

“We’re imposed on, Annie and I, that’s whaPs 
the matter!” said Maud, turning suddenly around. 

“ What do you want now ? ” Isabel’s tones were 
severe. Jeannette stood in the back-ground, looking 
anxiously on. 

“I suppose Jeannette sent you here,” said Maud 
cornfully, looking straight over Isabel at Jeannette. 
> “Jennette attends to her own affairs as I do to 
mine. We do not go about like a pair of matched 
horses. Now do tell me what this grumbling is all 
about.’' 

“ We think it is real mean, and only an excuse to 
get us out of the way, for Jeannette and Patty not 
to be willing to have us in the drawing-room. They 
could stand in front of the mantel, and we could be 
between the front windows.” 

“Where would Fannie Bell, and Florence Dewey, 
and Grace Trollope stand ? ” 

“0, all around,” said Maud indifferently. 


38U 


AFT'ERWARt). 


“No, they couldn’t! Now see here, Maud. Do' 
listen to reason. You and Annie and Patty and 
Jeannette have noses as much alike as if they were 
cut out of the same mould. Your voices are just 
alike. You all have light hair and colorless skins. 
You all measure five feet, three. Now, consider,” 
continued Isabel, warming. “Suppose it should 
happen that four different gentlemen should say the 
same thing to you at the same time. There are only 
a certain number of regulation speeches. You four 
sisters would all repU^ in concert, with the same 
smile and the same inclination of the head. I have 
seen it often enough at the table, goodness knows, 
for me to wish for our common good that we were 
melted down or condensed into one Chubbock. Then 
there would be some hopes of a personality. Now 
don’t spoil the rejception, girls! ” Her voice had l^e- 
come as soft as velvet, and as pleading as the last 
final strain of an organ nocturne. 

Alaud appeared somewhat impre.ssed with the 
calamity threatened, and, looking first at Isabel and 
then at Jeannette while her brow was clearing with 
a final volley like a departing thunder-storm, she 
said ; 

“ Well, it is the last time, anyway ! ” 

The house was finally metamorphosed. 

The sisters walked from room to room, singly or 
in pairs, taking a last, lingering, satisfied look. 


AFTERWARD. 


381 


Isabel surveyed the large table decked with hand- 
some napery and all those nondescript pj’ramids, 
and cake and nugat bric-a-brac which are supposed 
essential to ornate fashionable life. She was pleased 
with everything, from the bonbons to the highly 
polished floor. She liked the large spaces made bv 
the removal of much of the furniture. She liked the 
heavy perfume laden air, the drawn shades and the 
/ lighted lamps. As she walked through the long, 
wide, old-fashioned hall, its tesselated marble soft- 
ened by elegant rugs, the wide space at the rear end 
embowered in palms for the musicians, she could 
already hear the orchestra which a couple of hours 
later would be in full blast. She cjuld hear the mur- 
mur of myriad voices in the great rooms, the sweep 
and rustle of skirts on the staircase. It was all so 
delightful that, even at this last minute before dress- 
ing, she could not refrain from delicious soliloquizing. 

“There, I shall stand. Here, perhaps, Carroll 
Saxby. .4nd there Mrs. Allerton, mad with chagrin, 
when she sees Carroll preferring me to Blanche. For 
he shall ! “ said Isabel aloud. 

“Isabel, Isabel!” called Patty. “Sanderson is 
ready to dress your hair. Come quickly.” 

She ran up-stairs. All the sisters were in one room, 
variously distributed between Jeannette’s maid, who 
was the champion coifl'eur, and the manicure, who 


383 


AFTERWARD. 


was at present dressing Maud’s nails and attending 
to the softening process with Annie and Patty. 

*‘Let me see your nails, Jeannette. Morgan has 
finished yours, I suppose.” 

Jeannette held up both hands in triumph, display- 
ing ten long, shell-like nails which were certainly tri- 
umphant proofs of digital helplessness. 

“Look at mine,” said Isabel. “I did them m}^- 
self.” 

“I should never have the patience,” yawned Jean- 
nette. “How do you keep from breaking them when 
they are so long? ” 

“That is my secret. No, I will tell you. I had 
little horn caps made to slip over my fingers when I 
am fussing around. If you had used your eyes, you 
might have seen them repeatedly. They came home 
two weeks ago.” 

“That is an excellent idea. Miss,” said Morgan, 
admiringly. She felt that Isabel ought to have be- 
longed to the trade. “Shall you take out a patent. 
Miss Isabel?” 

“No, I will give the invention to you, Morgan. 
Perhaps you will make your fortune.” 

“Who knows! ” said the manicure, thoughtfullv. 

One by one, the sisters were dressed and wended 
their way down-stairs. 

The musicians came, and entered upon their duties. 
At the first burst of sound, Isabel’s slippered foot 


AFTERWARD. 


383 


beat the floor in happy time. Guests began to 
arrive. “Poor Annie and Maud,” thought Isabel, 
“if I were they and wanted to, I would slip into the 
drawing-room at the auspicious moment, and who 
could say me nay. But they will have enough people 
soon, and such a hot room, too. It always gets so 
hot.” She opened her fan of white ostrich feathers, 
and swayed it lazily. She liked the transitory soli- 
tude preceding the rush to her domain. 

Her reveries were interrupted by a lone intruder, a 
monolithic mass of adipose and gourmandism who 
strayed into her sanctum and gazed around. 

“Ah, Mr. Cheops, how pleased I am to extend a 
welcome to you first.” 

Mr. Cheops’ pendulous jaw dropped into a senile 
smile. He spread one fat, freckled, wrinkled hand 
across his immense white waistband, bowed to 
Isabel, and said, “I came especially to see you,” but 
he kept his eyes fixed oti the table. 

A tall, spidery waiter advanced, whose swallow 
tails looked like wings that might any minute carry 
him aloft. His cadaverous cheeks and solemn eyes 
were in humorous contrast to the septuagenarian 
deposits of Mr. Cheops. He held a tray extended, 
which bore a rich salad. 

Mr. Cheops’ throat trembled anticipatorily, as he 
took it. 


384 


AFTERWARD. 


‘‘ Poor lamb, he is at rest!” thought Isabel, and 
turned around and looked down the suite of rooms. 
She was fully comscious of the perspective she must 
fill from the opposite end. Her dark blue silk dress 
cut low in the neck revealed a lovely base for the 
slender column of her round throat, around which 
fitted a single string of large pearls. Into thevelvet\^ 
lobe of each ear was screwed a diamond. Her hair 
was a mass of fluffy curls piled high above her fore- 
head. 

People were coming now in a continuous stream. 
Mr. Cheops would soon have plenty of company. 

There is Miss Polly van Fleet. Yes, she sees Isabel 
right away, and makes her way with just the merest 
handshake for Maud and Annie to the dining-room, 
when she immediately whispers to Isabel: 

“You look perfectly lovel^^ Aren’t you glad to be 
off here alone? 1 think you might have asked me to 
receive with you.” 

Isabel tapped Polly’s cheek with her fan. “ Stav by 
me, if you like.” 

“0, that is out of the question — now. Three re- 
ceptions, then dinner at the Allertons, and the theater 
after.” 

“Do the Allertons have a dinner party to-night? ” 
asked Isabel, a little quickly. 

“Yes, a small one. Papa won’t go to large ones, 
YOU know. Just the Saxbys and ourselves.” 

“Mrs. Winchester, too ? ” 


AFTERWARD. 


385 


“Not she! Mrs. Allerton was telling mamma that 
it was like ducking under water for apples to get rid 
of Mrs. Winchester and not offend Mrs. Saxby. That 
heroine is in Boston for a fortnight. So Mrs. Aller- 
ton seized her opportunity. They say Mrs. Win- 
chester is the handsomest woman that has dropped 
down into New York in an age. I haven’t seen 
her.” 

“I have, and I consider her absolutely plain. She, 
might better have stayed in Europe.’’ 

“By the way, have you met Carroll?’’ asked 
Polly. 

“Yes.” 

“Improved, isn’t he. Positively overwhelming 
with that grand German manner. He is said to re- 
semble the Grand Duke of Baden. Everybody takes 
it for granted that he is to make love to Blanche.’’ 
Polly’s eyes contracted slightly, for she had just come 
from Mrs. Kittredge’s. 

“Mrs. Allerton would be dreadfully disappointed if 
he did not, I suppose. I think she has educated 
Blanche for Carroll.’’ 

“Well, it would be highly suitable all around. I’d 
set iny cap, if I thought it would be any use. Look 
at Mr. Cheops,’’ and Polly nodded to the bay win- 
dow, where he had now seated himself with a varie- 
gated ice, which he was contemplating fondly. 


386 


AFTERWARD. 


‘‘It takes all kinds to make the world, dear, and ol 
course we want the ices eaten.” 

“Mr. Cheops will do it,” said Polly. “Well, good- 
by, darling.” 

“Stop a minute,” and Isabel seized a button on 
Polly’s waist. “Whom are you going to hear this 
evening? ” 

“I am going to see Adah Rehan. I want to study 
her costumes. 1 have been buying a new dress. 
After the theater, we go to Delmonico’s. Now, I 
must go.” Polly whisked into the hall, then up- 
stairs for her wraps, and was out of the house just 
ten minutes after she had entered. 

As Polly left, a half dozen came into Isabel’s room 
at once. Presently it was full. 

Then she forgot the future in entertaining, for she 
was soon encircled by young men, each with a plate 
in his hand. The gustatory process conduces won- 
derfully to thought with a certain class of people. 
To be sure, what might be called a low order of ideas 
in the realm of pure thought, grows out of o\^sters, 
bouillon, pate de fois gras and other delect ables that 
are eaten en route, so to speak. Their filmy texture 
serves at least to cover the mental vacuum that 
might otherwise be revealed. 

The violins wailed and warbled alternatelv in the 
hall. The flowers sent out richer and richer perfumes 
as the air became warmer. Debutantes’ cheeks and 


AFTERWARD. 


387 


eyes sparkled with more than youthful brilliancy, as 
they sipped champagne, ate rum punches, or drank 
black coffee. Everywhere was a constantly changing 
rush and pack of people, till even Maud and Annie 
had had enough attention to satisfy their longings. 
The silk and velvet trains that covered the aching 
feet and ankles of the sisters, as the hours passed 
away, were the envy and admiration of many. The 
line old house never looked handsomer. Flowers, 
music and refreshments were all of the choicest. 
Servants and waiters were as noiseless as French 
clocks. The street outside, from avenue to avenue, 
was packed with liveried carriages. Beggars and 
vagrants lingered around the awning covering the 
front stoop, whenever the street watchman momen- 
tarily ceased his vigilance. Reporters sent by Mr. 
Chubbock, incognito, were busy taking mental notes 
of this magnificent expression of his last corner in 
bread-stuff's. In and about that roomy old mansion 
reigned a carnival of plenty. 

By six o’clock, the afternoon throng had waned 
and almost vanished. 

Isabel sank into an arm-chair, and, extending to 
the utmt)st her two little feet in their high -heeled 
slippers, winced over the shooting, stinging pains. 
“A cup of strong coffee, Munson— clear! 0, Patty, 
my head is ready to split. But it’s a great success, 
is n’t it. How many do you think were here ? 


388 


AFTERWARD. 


“Everybody, I guess,” said Patty, laconically. “I 
feel as if I should faint. Bring me a glass of cham- 
pagne, Munson.” 

“Why do you take champagne, Patty? You know 
it always goes to your head. It will give you a red 
nose for this evening.” 

“I don’t care. I’ve got to take something. Pm 
just about dead. I wish it were over. Three mortal 
hours this evening! ” 

“0, you will feel as bright as a button two hours 
hence.” 

“Munson, where are you?” said Jeannette, saun- 
tering wearily in, as the last guest departed. “Tell 
cook to make me a cup of strong green tea. Well, 
Isabel, how do you think it went off? Are you sat- 
isfied?” 

“Perfectly, so far,” said Isabel judicially. “Sec 
here! ” she whispered. “Half a column in the Sunday 
Centaur. I wrote it myself, and gave it to the 
Centaur reporter. He beamed on me. Saved him a 
lot of trouble, you know. You won’t recognize your- 
self when YOU see what nice things I said about 
, , * 

you. 

Jeannette brightened perceptibly. 

Annie and Maud now joined the conclave, each 
with a glass of crushed ice, with which they were 
cooling their parched throats. 

“You make me think of Dives, girls,” said Isabel. 
“Hush, Isabel, you’re wicked,” 


AFTERWARD. 


389 


“Don’t preacli, Patty. Did the Chou-de-bec book 
get any attention ? ” 

Patty nodded affirmatively. “Mrs. Beutiik Hig- 
gins read it for ten minutes. I guess she will open 
her eyes.” 

“Do you think she would never have suspected the 
dignity without the boot, Patty! Ha, ha! “ 

“She is too obtuse to suspect anything, unless it is 
down /in black and white.” 

“It saves her many a sleepless night, then,” said 
Isabel, sagely. “Now while we are resting, let us 
make out the list of all whom we want mentioned in 
The Golden Fleece. Sidney Harrows has promised 
me a whole column. Papa would be awfully disap- 
pointed after all the expense, if we weren’t exten- 
sively noticed.” 

While Isabel and her sisters are recuperating in an- 
ticipation of the evening reception, let us repair to 
the Allerton mansion, where dinner is about to be 
served. 

The van Vleets are there — Polly, her parents and 
brother, and the three Saxbys, also. The doors 
have not been opened yet between the drawing and 
the dining-room, but the animated, informal hum of 
conversation makes us feel in no present hurry for 
anything further than listening and observing. 

Blanche looks as fair as an Ophelia in her white 
surah gown, which is relieved sufficiently with gold 


3^0 


AFTERWARD. 


braid to separate its softness from her rounded neck 
and arms that have no other ornament than slender 
bands of turquoise. The shell-like contour of her 
ears has never been marred by earrings. As she 
stands now, talking to Tom van Vleet, with the blue 
silk draperies of one of the windows for a back- 
ground, she is infinitely more beautiful than any of 
the numerous statues of modern feminine beauty in 
the Luxembourg. Carroll Saxby thinks so, at least, 
as he sits on a divan just opposite, apparently ears 
and eyes for Polly alone, but all the time trying to 
hold before his mind two faces — Blanche’s in its 
cold, almost severe beauty, and Rosalia’s with a con- 
stant change of color and expression. Girls like 
Blanche have faces that abide in the memory; girls 
like Rosalia have power of presence. 

Carroll could shut his eyes and see Blanche. He 
could only think of something ever varying, when he 
tried to visualize Rosalia. 

He felt a selfish regret that he had met Rosalia. 

One downward step, though it leaves a mildew in 
its track that can never be effaced, does not benumb 
the moral faculties to the extent that it hardens. As 
Carroll looked at Blanche he realized that she was a 
woman whom he might easily be tempted to try to 
make his wife; but, with Rosalia in the back-ground, 
he felt more comfortable in Isabel’s society. With a 
woman like Isabel, even if a man had reservations in 
fact, it was perfectly justifiable to suppose that she 
had reservations in |)ossibility. She was one of those 
intellectually clever girls w’ho never feel till after they 
have thought. No mad excess of ecstatic feeling, 


AFTERWARD. 


391 


either of love or hate, disturbs the flow of their cease- 
less calculations. Cleverness of this sort, allied with 
sensuousness, often makes a more fascinating com- 
pound in its social expression, than the torrid glow 
of fires that lie deeply buried. 

“Are you glad to be at home again ? “ asked Polly. 

“I have not been back long enough to judge. So 
far I find It very diverting.’* 

“I never thought of judging home relations from 
the stand-point of diversion. That seems merely inci- 
dental, no matter how much there may be of it.” 

“I am afraid I have come back a German. My 
practical tastes are ultra material, no matter how 
attenuated and idealistic my theories.” 

“I shall have to stop and translate your long 
words before I say anything further. There is the 
butler, and I am glad to see him. I have been at 
three receptions, and I didn’t even take a cup of 
bouillon at one; hadn’t timeif I came hereto dinner. 

“I believe. Miss Polly, I am to take you out. I feel 
awfully honored,. but jealous of Tom, since he seems 
to be preferred to me by Miss Blanche.” 

“ Wait till you see where your seat is. I’ll wager 
you will be placed opposite Blanche where you can 
feast on her charms. Did you ever see a more stat- 
uesque beauty? ” 

“She is certainly a lovely picture.” 

“She is far more than that, after you know her. 
She has a rather slow mind, but a fine open char- 
acter that nothing can spoil. She is as wholesome 
and sweet as she looks.” 


392 


AFTERWARD. 


“You don’t mean to insinuate tliat she is dull.” 

“ Not a bit of it. She is all that she looks, but only 
some great occasion will bring her out. I believe it 
is her modest}^ that makes her so cold and still.” 

“I don’t think she looks cold. She looks — she 
looks — well — unaroused. It is a clumsy word, but 
it expresses my meaning.” 

“I understand,” said Polly, with a satisfied nod. 
“Yes, here you are, just where I said you would be.” 

The table was a round one, so that everybody 
was at a vantage point for observation. 

Mrs. Allerton glanced at the circle complacently. 
She felt that it was in harmony with her room, her 
china, and her station. 

It happens over and over to the most fastidious or 
aspiring American hostess, that her table presents a 
congeries of disagreeable personalities that throws 
a highly reflected light on the evolution of our higher 
social statics fashionably considered. 

Women have an inborn faculty which, aided by a 
little favorable opportunity, enables them to keep 
their stage secrets hidden. One must, therefore, al- 
ways study the men of a family, was a proposition 
that Mrs. Allerton had deduced, if one wants to 
know the degree of refinement it has reached. She 
immensely admired the Saxby men in one particular, 
although, if she had spoken her inmost thought, she 
would have said that she disliked them in many 
others. But, for two generations, the Saxby men 
had married women in a better social position than 


AFTERWARD. 


3^3 


their own, and of unquestionably fine family antece- 
dents, so far as that can be predicated in America:. 

No woman could have looked more superb than 
did Rebecca, her gracious, kindly presence full of 
sweetness and amiability. Her rounded cheeks had 
an almost girlish freshness. Her finely shaped eyes, 
benevolent and dignified, had a liquid softness that 
was unusual. Had it not been for what Rebecca had 
brought to John, both in herself and her social posi- 
tion, it is doubtful whether Mrs. Allerton could have 
decided on the Saxby money for Blanche any sooner 
than she could on that of the Chubbocks, for which 
she had an unconquerable aversion. Everything 
about the Chubbocks seemed wholly and unutter- 
ably vulgar to her; their house, their carriages, 
their entertainments, were as defiling to her aristo- 
cratic convictions as the sacrifices in the temple, 
which, while holy to the high priest, were nevertheless 
unclean to an Essene. She smiled at the presumption 
which kept Jeannette and Patty unmarried because 
they aspired to the same exclusiveness as she. “The 
line must be drawn somewhere,’^ said Mrs. Allerton 
firmly to Rebecca, once, in conversation, “and I 
draw it at the Chubbocks and others like them.” 
Mrs. Allerton amused Rebecca and even excited her 
wonder. She could not imagine such a savage grip 
on something of which she had always been assured. 
Nothing was valuable to Rebecca, except what she 
considered valuable herself. So, because Isabel 
amused her, she gave the girl both opnortuni ties and 
her intimate social indorsement. Mrs. Allerton 


394 


AFTERWARD. 


judged everything not only from her own standpoint, 
but from the value put upon it by others. Her tabu- 
lated social logarithms were sufficient for the most 
intricate social problem. 

John Saxby, with the same kind of worldly knowl- 
edge that Mrs. Mlerton possessed, was not unmind- 
ful of Rebecca’s social value to him; but no man ever 
loved a woman more undeniably for herself alone, 
than he did his wife. Rebecca’s gentle nature found 
a resting-place in his strength, his honesty, his pug- 
nacity, and that shrewd business capacity which 
attracts some women in the same way that intel- 
lectual superiority does others. 

John was ostentatious to vulgarity occasionally, 
but this Rebecca checked, and he admired her for it, 
as his taste was actually better than his propensity. 
He also had the great good sense, when Carroll was 
a small boy, to defer to Rebecca in whatever per- 
tained to the child’s social culture. So, though 
Carroll had the appearance and, remotely, the man- 
ner of the Saxbys, he was what might have been 
called a highly refined and developed specimen. 

Has refinement a demoralizing and depleting in- 
fluence on natures intended to be aggressive and 
rough ? 

Here was Carroll, certainly, though university- 
bred, with no fondness for business and no ambition 
for a profession. 

Even Mrs. Allerton was sufficiently American to 
believe gentlemanly idleness, though it be that of an 
Imglish lord, dangerously demoralizing. Still, such 
are the contradictions in human nature, she would 


Ai' XiiJiWARb. 


396 


have been more than glad to have Blanche marry the 
most vagrantly idle lord that England possesses. 

None of these deep-sea soundings were carried on 
during the dinner ; they were but the conditions on 
which such a dinner party depended. 

“I understand, Mr. Saxby,’’ said Mr. Allerton, 
who was a man that looked as though he had been 
sitting all his life for his portrait as president of the 
United States, ‘‘that you are going to let your last 
Whistler be exhibited at the Union League.’^ 

“Yes, I am. I want to send it away for a time, in 
order to be able to catch the impression once more. 
I have looked at it so long, that now I see nothing 
but an even, black surface. It makes me nervous to be 
always looking at it, now here, now there, to grasp 
its meaning, as if the focus of my eyes were distended.” 

“Why do you buy such pictures, Mr. Saxby?” 
asked Polly. 

“I don’t buy them,” said John, in frank disgust. 
“It is all the doings of my collector. He persuaded 
me to make a collection of Whistlers, but, now that 
I have gotten together a dozen or more, I have about 
decided to give them to the Metropolitan Museum.” 

“You had better commission me to select your 
pictures, father; I think our tastes would agree 
pretty nearly.” 

“You are fit for something better, n^y son,” said 
John, good humoredly. “lean no more imagine a 
man following such a calling than I could fancy — 
well, fancy myself making sponge cakes for the 
Woman’s Exchange. Of course, if I had to be a 
baker, I would try to be a good one.” 


396 


AFTERWARD. 


“It must require much skill as well as culture,’' 
said Blanche firmly, “to select pictures judiciously. 
I shall be very glad when more of our young men 
devote their attention to callings not connected so 
directly with the making of money.” 

“Money is a commodity whose value it sounds 
well to be ignorant of; but it is an indispensable re- 
quirement, even for the collection of pictures,” 
declared John. 

“I can conceive bare walls preferable to pictures 
bought with some money,” said Blanche. 

“The Chubbock money, I suppose you mean, my 
dear,” said Mrs. Allerton. “But really the Chub- 
bocks are very good people in their place.” 

• Blanche looked distressed. “I had no thought of 
being personal, mamma.” 

“Well,” said Tom, “although I should wish to 
pursue something more directly professional than 
collecting pictures, if I were a professional man, 
still, I do think that, until we New Yorkers reach a 
point where money and money making are less in 
our thought, no matter how much we may accumu- 
late, we are really in a very low stage of social refine- 
ment. How seldom you see a man or woman with 
that fine unconseiousness of material surroundings 
whieh I will denominate kingly or queenly, for want 
of a better word. We shall not be highly civilized 
until the first question is about the man and not 
about his belongings. I don’t care how much money 
a man has, the more the better, if only it is the thing 
of least value in the world to him.” 


AFTERWARD. 


397 


“You can’t think of a man without including his 
belongings. And wait till you have failed once or 
twice, Tom,” said John, “and then you will find that 
you are unable to live such heroics. A woman may, 
whose father and husband have never suffered 
reverses. But this is a bit of unworldliness we allow 
in women.” He glanced fondly at Rebecca. 

“Unworldliness that is the result of ignorance has 
no moral value, has it, Mr. Saxby?” asked Blanch' . 

“There, that is one of the speeches Blanche can 
make,” said Polly, touching Carroll. 

“A speech that takes me by surprise, coming from 
an Allerton. They have always been so judicious in 
their worldly wisdom and their piety both.” 

“Blanche represents a reaction,” said Polly 
warmly. 

Carroll was not in the mood to hear lofty senti- 
ments from Blanche or from an\'body. He wanted 
the excusing atmosphere of medium levels, to feel at 
ease with her, and he admired her beauty to that 
extent that he wanted to dally with his opportuni- 
ties with her with the same freedom that he felt with 
Isabel. If only this Greek had the Chubbock versa- 
tility and superficiality, thought Carroll. 

There had been nothing flattering in Blanche’s 
manner to him, after a few meetings, and this hap- 
pened in spite of herself. She could partially trust a 
girl like Isabel, because she partly understood her ; 
but to a man, back from a long absence abroad, 
toward whom she felt an accumulating mistrust, she 
could give absolutely nothing but reserve. Her re- 
serve was like the chilling of an ice-berg. It bore 


398 


AFTERWARD. 


down into an otherwise warm atmosphere with 
great coldness. 

Mrs. Allerton, who understood her daughter’s 
moods perfectly, perceived this coldness at dinner, 
and could scarcely conceal her irritation. 

After dinner Carroll sought Blanche with a piqued 
curiosity. Although he read her feeling, he wished 
to disabuse his mind of an impression so uncompli- 
mentary, for his wounded Saxby vanity made him 
very ill at ease with himself. It had seemed to him 
that each time that he met Blanche, her hauteur 
grew. 

His attentions, since his return, had been so very 
general, that perhaps she resented it; especially, as 
he had to admit to himself, he had certainly made 
opportunities to see Isabel. She might possibly think 
that he had studied to be indifferent to her. If this 
were so, he would repair the breach. If she did not 
like him — why — but he refused to entertain this 
opinion about any woman. He had the good sense, 
however, to seldom betray this exalted estimate of 
himself. 

“I am feeling in a very aggravated frame of mind, 
Miss Allerton.” 

“I should never have surmised it.” 

am. When we accepted Mrs. Allerton’s invita- 
tion to dinner I had planned a long evening with 
you, if you would have allowed it, but now, as our 
engagements stand, we must leave unconscionablv 
early on account of the Chubbock reception. Father 
promised Mr. Chubbock that we should all be 
there.” 


AFTERWARD. 


399 


She looked kindly at him., as she said, “I am sorry, 
Mr. Saxby, for I feel as though you and 1 had to be- 
gin our acquaintance over. Before you came back I 
did not think so, but we have both changed, radi- 
cally, I presume. I find it impossible to connect you, 
as you are, with my memory of you.” 

^ ^‘Your remarks may be very complimentary or 
very uncomplimentary. How am I to understand 
them?” asked Carroll laughingly. 

“O,you must be your own interpreter,” she replied, 
archly. 

” Then I shall immediately conclude, for some in- 
scrutable reason, that I have fallen in your good 
graces. What can I do ? ” 

“If you have fallen because of an inscrutable 
reason, there is nothing for you to do.” * 

“You ought to act the part of the goddess of truth 
to me.” 

“ Do you remember that statue of her in St. Peters 
that represents her as so haggard and withered? I 
am afraid a young man could not learn lessons from 
such a forbidding goddess.” 

“If she were clothed in aform aslovely as Ayeshah’s 
and appeared immortal, what then? ” 

“We never can see the whole truth. She is there- 
fore rightly personated subject to deformities. If we 
did see it, under existing conditions, we would be as 
miserable as the hero in George ElioP^ ‘ The Lifted 
Yeil.^” 

“Do you not think it our duty, then, to believe the 
very best possible of everyone? ” 


400 


AFTERWARD. 


“The possible is so different with each one of us,’’ 
said Blanche, gravely. She sat with her eyes cast 
down, looking as fair as a woman could look, with 
the light shining on her flaxen hair, which waved 
back from either temple to a low knot pierced with 
a gold arrow. She felt as if she were under an im- 
pulsion. 

Carroll felt momentarily serious and abashed. The 
story of Una, as given in Comus, flitted through his 
mind. He was paying an involuntary tribute to 
beauty and goodness. He could fancy Blanche as 
Iphegenia holding a listening ear to catch the faint- 
est whisperings of the oracles. Certainly she was a 
very different order of girl from Isabel, and yet, 
while he took an esthetic pleasure in her great 
beauty, and paid her the highest homage of respect a 
man can show a woman, he felt suddenly impatient 
to go to Isabel, and to leave his acquaintance with 
Blanche to take its natural course. 

“If I could — if I knew what would please you, I 
would make a confession of faith,” he said, finally, 
in a nonchalant manner. 

Her vague sense of responsibility suddenly left her. 
She looked up and laughed merrily ; and then they 
drifted into commonplaces which kept them chatting 
for a half hour. Then Carroll rose to go, for Rebecca 
had already gone up-stairs, and Blanche rose also. 

.“I wish we had waited till this evening to go to 
the reception,” she said. “I always enjoy seeing 
Isabel in the evening.” 

“Do you admire her ? ” asked Carroll earnestly. 


AFTERWARD. 


401 


^‘Sometimes, immensely. She is the cleverest girl, 
. certainly, that I know.” 

“She rather interests me.” 

“ As a matter of course. She interests everybody. 
Her naturalness and audacity amount to inspira- 
tions.” 

“Why do not other girls break their bars? ” 

“Isabel has simply never been caged. We who 
have, wouldn’t know how if we tried to fly in such 
a large space.” 

“I shouldn’t think the mothers would like Isabel.” 

Blanche looked up, taken by surprise. Her eyes 
told how nearly Carroll had touched the truth. 
Then she rallied and said valiantly: 

“That doesn’t necessarily argue against Isabel. 
It may take more time than, most mothers can give 
to understand such a girl. I like her.” 

Carroll shook hands rather more warmly than he 
had intended to a minute before. “May I call on 
you soon ? ” 

“0, yes.” Blanche bowed prettily. 

When the last guest was gone, Mrs. Allerton drew 
her daughter to her. She was too stout and too 
stiffly encased in black satin, to make the embrace 
more than temporary, and Blanche felt glad to be 
released. “ How did you enjoy Carroll? ” 

“I don’t understand him, ’’said Blanche, musingly. 

“Why, there is nothing special to understand. He 
is his father over, with Mrs. Saxby’s refinement. An 
excellent combination ! ” 

“Do you think so?” asked Blanche negatively. 

26 


402 


AFTERWARD. 


Have you experiniented with house plauts 
enough, dear reader, to realize what a forcing pro- 
cess a little ammonia effects ? A ^^oung plant will 
assume a sudden rich greenness and increase in size, 
but seldom bloom. A stand of plants treated in this 
way will unfold marvels of beauty in a short time. 
The amateur gardener is often sa delighted with 
these quick results, however, that he does not pro- 
portion his ammonia water to the quantity and qual- 
ity of the soil, and the decay is as quick as the bloom, 
and is accompa iied by a parasitic life that hastens 
the destruction. 

At seven o’clock the Chubbock sisters were utterly 
wilted, cross, and discouraged. At eight o’clock, 
what with the orchestra playing dulcet strains be- 
hind the palms, the flowers in the stately suite of 
rooms renewed, electric lights and soft colored lamps 
shedding brilliance everywhere, and nerves stimu- 
lated with coffee, tea or champagne, the eyes of the 
hostesses were as bright, their smiles as constant, 
and their animation as unflagging as if they had 
been resting all their lives for this epochal hour. 

Four hundred guests streamed in and out of the 
handsome rooms ; men of all professions, businesses 
and trades, from the college president to the judge, 
from the wholesale pork dealer to the wholesale land 
dealer, from the celebrated minister who flashed in 
and out of such assemblies among his fold and 
planned on the way home homilies on the “Golden 
Calf” which he never preached, to the acolyte who 
entered with reverential air in order to learn to feel 
at home in the palaces of those to whom in the order 


AFTERWARD. 


403 


of Providence he might be called to serve; brokers, 
speculators, commission merchants ; gamblers who, 
with other cards than those of rougeetnoir, changed 
the poor man’s treasury of bread-stuffs from New 
York to Chicago, or cornered it in transmuted 
values in secret granaries of London and Paris; 
lottery proprietors, whose lives were chiefly spent in 
drawing-room coaches speeding from Maine to Texas, 
or from ocean to ocean, giving chances on minerals, 
water-courses, ranches, and unborn towns, and sit- 
ting like national vampires in their changing homes, 
to rake the golden spoils in from all directions. As 
Monte Carlo is to the world, so was the Chubbock 
parlor that night to scores of men on whose skill in 
games of chance the despair of thousands depended. 
Like the Spider of the “Escurial,” from whose web 
stretched wires affecting the destinies of Europe, so 
Timothy Chubbock stood beside Jeannette and 
Patty, smiling on the victims whom he meant to en- 
tangle to-morrow, and measuring the success of his 
gigantic “deals” by the presenceof meninhis parlors 
whom nothing but an anxious fear of bankruptcy 
would have induced to cross his threshold. No mat- 
ter, they were there. They paid their tribute money 
to father and daughters in that social respect as dear 
to the parvenu as a throne would be to a royal 
bastard. 

As the throngs stopped coming, but while laughter 
and conversation, music and wine were at their 
height, Timothy passed through his sumptuous 
rooms ostensibly to exchange a word here and there 
with a guest, but really to see what Isabel w^s 


404 


AFTERWARD. 


doing. His opaque, brown eyes gave a dull scintil- 
lation as he beheld this one child of his heart sur- 
rounded by young men and old, some with their 
faces flushed and only too ready to break into laugh- 
ter; others, with a curious, speculative wondering 
stare at this audacious girl who said whatever she 
chose with the daintiness and reserve of a convent- 
bred girl, and then, in sudden, evanescent flashes, 
had such an abandon and allurement that one might 
have supposed her a Greuze portrait suddenly en- 
dowed with life. Timothy noted Carroll Saxb>% his 
back half turned to the room, one arm resting on a 
cabinet, a wine glass partially emptied in his left 
hand. He stood a little apart, but within the circle, 
a distinguished, foreign looking young man, with a 
heavy lower face, but a square, open, manly brow. 
His clear blue eyes paid Isabel an involuntary tribute 
of amazed fascination. 

If in manner, look, or accent she had been once ill- 
bred, the charm would have vanished. 

The drawing-room stage, though wholly melo- 
dramatic, and never giving opportunity for the act- 
ing of an entire play, is admirable for benefit enter- 
tainments. 

Every nerve and muscle of Isabel’s lithe body and 
mobile face were called into requisition. 

There is a clever little in sect called the “ devil’s-darn- 
ing-needle” whose motions are fascinating to the 
youngest and the olde^. Observe it on a mid-sum- 
mer day, poising its symmetrical body in the warm 
air, its gauzy wings outspread, its antennas feeling in 
every direction. It darts hither and thither. Watch 


AFTERWARD. 


405 


its gyrations and sudden but graceful plunges as 
long as you may, you can never calculate its next 
movement, or guess its final lodgment. 

Thus Carroll watched Isabel. 

Why did this slight girl waste such an immense 
amount of vitality on such listeners? Was she so 
full of nerve force and emotional impulse that these 
pyrotechnics were a necessity? If once he had 
caught a conscious glance, or heard a word that 
might by any means be intended for him, his vanity 
and indifference would have increased together. But 
however personal her attention could be when they 
were alone, there was no one more impersonal and 
yet agreeable, as soon as she appeared to be politely 
free to make her attentions general. 

She already knew that she influenced Carroll, and 
that he was brilliant, shallow and vain. She had a 
useful memory, and the added faculty of assorting 
her mental wares and drawing on them instantly at 
need. So, when Carroll occasionally attempted 
learned flights, she flew her kite amazingly near his. 
Try as he would, he could not discover whether her 
stores of knowledge were like the goods of an im- 
pecunious shop-keeper, making a fine exterioy dis- 
play, but concealing many empty drawers and 
s lelves, or whether she was that rarest of all women, 
with decided intellectual talent and resources and a 
fine, social art. Resist her as he would, he found 
himself hopelessly believing in her, believing in her 
m any -sidedness. 

Dilate as we may on domestic virtues, — and for 
staying powers they are undeniably the greatest, — 


406 


afterward. 


still we seek one diversion in and pay one most 
honeyed tribute to traits and accomplishments with 
which these have nothing to do. 

Carroll drew a little nearer, just as Mr. Chubbock 
reached the group. The father lowered Isabel’s 
artistic value, for his presence was so insignificant 
that nothing but an indomitable pugnacity would 
have ever led him to try to make a figure in society. 
Isabel was his as his stocks were, as the room they 
were in was, and Timothy placed himself beside her 
and communicated this impression. She slipped her 
hand within his arm. He certainly needed other 
plumage than his own; that she never failed to per- 
ceive. For the little time he was absent from 
Jeannette and Patty, she felt able to cover him with 
her feathers. 

Her movement was unexpectedly childlike. 

“ It seems, papa, that I have said something severe, 
and I want you to defend me Mr. Brownell ac- 
counts for the growth of democratic ideas in Eng- 
land by saying that we have proved in our country 
that wealth, refinement, scholarship — was there 
anything else, Mr. Brownell? Oh, yes; esthetic per- 
ception and morality — can just as well be the result- 
ant of one generation as many. I replied that such 
a combination from one or many generations was as 
rare in any country, even in one individual, as the 
appearance of the phoenix in Egypt, and would cer- 
tainly portend a new era. I thought it was the 
universal belief in New York that superior excellence 
was conclusive proof of insanity. This is an age of 


AFTERWARD. 


407 


balance, — so much evil for so much good, — now is it 
not, papa? 

Isabel slipped her hand out. “Papa will discuss 
the question with you, gentlemen.” 

She wound in and out of several groups, leaving 
Mr. Chubbock with what he considered a mortally 
heavy task, and which broke up the conversation as 
soon as she left, as she had intended to do, and 
finally came out by the door whither Carroll 
presently approached. 

“You have been so surrounded. Miss Isabel, that I 
have not had a chance to say a word to you.” 

“I expected something more original from you, 
Mr. Saxby. I am sure you can soar above plati- 
tudes.” 

“If I could be alone ahalf hour with you, I might.” 
He was always thinking how delightful it would be 
to be alone with Isabel. 

“ I am. certainly often alone,” she said demurely; 
then to save the awkwardness which would follow 
from such unexpected naivete, “alone, though sur- 
rounded with people. In this house, with such a 
family, aloneness, prosaically considered, is out of 
the question. Do you not enjoy being an only son ’ ” 

“I have taken it so entirely for granted that I 
have never thought anything of it. It is a state 
which is said to be very conducive to selfishness.” 

“Selfishness is universal, no matter what the con- 
ditions, or people would not make the accusation so 
constantly. I am sure it is desirable to be selfish 
comfortably, if possible.” 

“Then you admit it as a necessary evil.” 


408 


AFTERWARD. 


‘‘I believe in it as a cardinal virtue. If you will 
think a minute, you will find that it is the so-called 
unselfish people who are always in trouble, and that 
it is the selfish ones who help them out in the right 
way by doing just as little as possible.’’ 

Isabel looked very soft and gentle while enumerat- 
ing such hard doctrine. Her words pleased Carroll 
in themselves, although he took it for granted that 
she was sparring, for he chose more and more to con- 
sider her the reverse of many of her speeches. How 
useless it is for Truth to show herself to us, unless 
she neutralizes the vision by a half disguise. 

“I am afraid the air is full of discussion, Mr. 
Saxby, and I do not know of anything more incon- 
gruous at a reception. So let us postpone this heavv 
subject. You dined at Mrs. Allerton’s to-night, did 
you not ? ” 

“Yes, I did,’’ said Carroll, rather spasmodically, 

“I am sure you enjoyed yourself there. The 
Allerton dinners are famous, good and long. Did you 
have a nice time ? ’’ 

“ Yes, of course. It is nicer here, however.” 

“Thanks.” She dipped her face into her fan an in- 
stant. “Blanche will be the belle this winter. Every 
one takes it for granted. She is certainly beautiful.” 
Isabel made this last remark as if it were a depend- 
ent clause. 

“ 0, she is undeniably beautiful. Does she know 
much ?” 

“I have never examined her,” Sciid Isabel gravely. 

“Such knowledge comes without examination. I 
like a responsive nature.” 


AFTERWARD. 


409 


‘‘Blanclie is never that. Responsiveness is not 
knowledge.’’ 

“They may go together.” 

‘‘I am surprised that, after having been in Ger- 
many so long, you shotild desire women to know 
much.” 

“German women often know a great deal, but they 
never assert their knowledge.” 

“It may be that way with Blanche.” 

“She would better be American then, when the ad- 
vantage is on her side. Drawing people out is like 
sucking honey from a honeysuckle. You would 
rather go without, after a little effort. ” 

“ We shall get into a discussion again, so let’s part. 
There is Mrs. Bilbo scowling at me. Do go talk to 
her daughter. You see how unselfish I can be.” 
Isabel withdrew with her sweetest smile into which 
she threw a vague regret. 

An hour later, when all the guests were gone, the 
lights in the lower stories extinguished, and weary 
servants and drowsy daughters preparing for' that 
one interval of the day when human beings are all 
little children alike, in committing themselves in 
perfect helplessness to sleep, Isabel reviewed the even- 
ing with satisfaction. “I shall be the first of the 
Chubbock sisters married yet,” she murmured, as 
she turned on her pillow to settle herself to sleep. 
“Poor Jeannette and Patty! Poor Maud and An — ” 
A heavy sigh, the first draught of that refreshing 
potion, slumber, broke off' the last word. 


CHAPTER V. 


A RIDE IN THE PARK. 

On his way home Carroll had a rather humiliating 
sense of the elasticity of his affections. The picture 
of Rosalia as he had seen her last, leaning against 
the great walnut tree on the promenade in Inter- 
lachen, was growing conveniently vague and pictur- 
esque. She looked so round and well cared for that 
he did not doubt but that she was really better ofl' 
than she would have been had he tried to raise her 
above her position. Although her expression was 
heart-broken, and although he could not conceal, 
even from his vanity, that he had added moral 
cowardice to other traits as mean, nevertheless, all 
this was in a dark back-ground that no one would 
take the trouble to peer into, and which, after all, 
made the setting of many lives that eventually be- 
come fair. Student days and Rosalia were both of 
the past. 

Having disposed of Rosalia, Isabel and Blanche 
rose before him. He was in the vortex of Isabel’s 
attraction; but then, there was that array ot Chub- 
bock sisters and Chubbock pere, all alarmingly like 
Isabel and without her distinguishing qualities of 
brilliancy and adaptability which would render her 
triumphant anywhere, if left quite alone. If only 
the whole family, except Isabel, could be obliterated ! 

410 


AFTER WARD. 


411 


But, since he had convalesced so comfortably after 
leaving Rosalia, on grounds of expedienc}" doubtless 
he could learn an equally comfortable indifference to 
Isabel, if he made a little effort. Affection was tran- 
sitory. Like all other men, and women too, he 
judged absolutely from his own level. Thus it is 
that one man’s heaven is another man’s purgatory, 
and sometimes the lowest hell of misery to still an- 
other. 

.lucre was Blanche. What a harmonious picture, 
complete in every detail! Home, dress, and parents 
made an environment that would always give 
suitable scenic effect. And Blanche herself? She 
would never do the wrong thing, or, at all events, 
look the wrong thing. A connection with the 
Allertons was not to be despised. It was in the 
natural order of things that he must marry suitably, 
and Blanche was at the disposal of her parents. 
These white, still, indifferent girls always did as they 
were told. He knew by those untranslatable noth- 
ings which, however, make a man bold, that Mrs. 
Allerton’s mind was the same as his father’s; and 
John Saxby’s chief present danger was in disgusting 
Carroll with Blanche by always sounding her 
praises. Still, Blanche was undeniably the best 
speculation. Was not marriage a lottery ? He de- 
cided to ask her to ride with him the next day. She 
was admirable on a horse. Certainly he would spare 
no effort with himself to fix his choice on Blanche. 
And Isabel? Well, she could wait. She could be 
picked up at any time. 

While Carroll was filled with these judicious re- 
flections, Blanche, who had retired, but had been un- 
able to sleep because of a long conversation with her 
mother on the complex motives that should in- 
fluence a girl in marrying, had risen from her bed 
and gone to the window to look out, to try to dissi- 
pate the fog of troubled thought that assailed her. 


412 


AFTERWARD. 


This quCvStion of whom 6he should marry lay like a 
nightmare on her soul. Why need she ever marry? 
As for Carroll Saxby, she did not believe in him. He 
was handsome and rich, but vain. She found this 
last quality intolerable in a man. 

She had a mortified sense of being in the same 
category with her father’s fine horses — a piece of 
property to be sold to the highest bidder, and ap- 
praised according to her physical charms. 

She sighed deeply, and wished she were little and 
plain, and so dull that even the few accomplishments 
she had would have been an impossible acquisition. 
She did not want anyone to marry her because she 
was beautiful, or because she was a good amateur 
actress, or because she was Chauncey Allerton’s 
daughter. “I don’t know a man that I care to 
marry. 0, dear! I wish Uncle Mark were back. Per- 
haps he could help me,” and she crept back into bed. 

The next morning at breakfast Carroll’s note, 
asking her to ride with him at four, arrived. 

Mrs. Allerton’s gray pompadour, surmounted by 
its bit of lace and pink ribbons, swayed dramatically 
as she said, “Of course you will go, my dear.” 

“I suppose so,” said Blanche, wearily, “but I 
don’t want to go one bit.” 

“My dear!” and Mrs. Allerton opened her eyes 
reprovingly. 

‘1 don’t. I fancied Carroll would come home 
Irom Germany and his travels much more of a man 
than others in our set. He doesn’t compare with 
Tom van Vleet, and, on the whole, displeases me. 
There is something frivolous about him.” 

“I never heard that word applied to a man before. 
It is just his foreign manner with young ladies. 
Your papa thinks him quite wonderful. He is really 
an authority on horses.” 

“So is our farmer on chickens,” said Blanche 
loftily. 


AFTERWARD. 


413 


“You are never pretty, Blanche, when you are ill- 
tempered. I had just this kind of aversion to your 
dear father, in the beginning. To me it is the best 
sign in the world that you and Carroll are suited to 
each other.” 

“Mamma, you do have such a bold way of putting 
things. You take it entirely for granted that Carroll 
Saxby intends to marry me, and that I have nothing 
whatever to do in the matter. I have always been 
obedient to 3^011,” said Blanche, her voice quivering, 
“but I will not marry simply to please you or be- 
cause a man is rich. I would rather live and die an 
old maid.” 

“Will 3^011 answer this note, or shall I ? ” said Mrs. 
Allerton severely. 

“1 will,” said Blanche, with a trace of fright in her 
voice, which this tone from Mrs. Allerton invariabU' 
produced, strive as she would against it. 

At four o’clock promptly the horses were at the 
door, and Blanche went leisurely down the stoop, 
her skirt held up with one hand, a riding whip in the 
other, and as fair a vision of loveliness as her mother 
could dCvsire. The gfoom mounted her, and then, 
Carroll, springing into his saddle, led the way for a 
few paces, until Blanche’s horse quickened its steps, 
when they rode off together. 

Mrs. Allerton stood behind the curtains in the ba3" 
window of her drawing-room, watching them till 
they were out of sight, the complacent satisfaction 
on her face betraying both her expectation and her 
desire. 

The winter had set in so late that, although the 
first snow had fallen, the routes for equestrians in 
the park were still in fair order. The exhilarating air 
and exercise by the time they reached the east 
entrance had brought the color to Blanche’s cheeks, 
and she looked almost etherially beautiful. Carroll 
was thoughtful and dignified. Blanche liked him 


AFTERWARD. 


better when he was still. She felt like her usual 
gentle and plaeable self as they eantered toward the 
west side. 

It would be a foolish thing to say that she was not 
willing to ride and be seen with Carroll. It pleased 
her very well, indeed, if matters eould have ended 
there. She liked to receive her share of the attention 
of this young man who, at present, was the most 
popular one in her set. She liked his carefully 
groomed and superbly formed horse. She liked, so to 
speak, Carroll’s own appointment of person and ap- 
pearance, just as she usually innocently enjoyed her 
own beauty and surroundings. To be as luxuriously 
bred as Blanche had been meant to require and 
expect all these extraneous comforts and appurte 
nances as much as wholesome air and healthful food. 
So, when they met Isabel and Posey, presently, in a 
jaunty Russian sleigh well set off by long tassels, 
with a funereal groom behind them, and Munson’s 
plethoric magnitude in front, Blanche bowed with 
more than usual sweetness, and on the whole girl- 
ishlv exulted in the fine figure that she and Carroll 
made. 

Isabel bowed brightly too, as Carroll tipped his 
hat with studied reverence, and, truth must be told, 
he would have thrown his caution and diplomacy to 
the winds then and there if, by so doing, he could 
have been in that cozy sleigh beside Isabel. 

Their roads diverged almost immediately. 

“Munson,” said Isabel, as sbe watched the retreat- 
ing figures, “keep on up the west side.” 

Meanwhile, the keen, crisp air, and their ever in- 
creasing pleasure in the exercise, put them both in a 
high flow of spirits, and, during an occasional walk 
when their horses came close enough together to per- 
mit of conversation, Carroll exerted himself to the 
utmost to be agreeable. 


AFTERWARD. 


415 


Somehow she forgot that she had thought him 
either weak or vain. There was no trace of these 
characteristics in what he said or looked. He was 
simply reflecting her own personality, so far as he 
could judge of it, and that, to the weakest and 
strongest of us all, is pleasant, if it be genuine and 
unintentional. 

It was after one of these lapses into conversation 
that they came upon a long, straight stretch of roadr 
u ider a line of evergreens. 

“Shall we have a gallop? “ Carroll asked. 

Blanche nodded, and off the}' sped. 

Faster and faster the horses went. Keener and 
more exhilarating the frosty air became, cutting 
their faces and making their blood glow, as they 
dashed on. Side by side they kept, the muffled thud 
of the horses’ hoofs on the snow making a staccato 
to the low rustling of the wind in the trees. The sky 
was so blue; the vista, up the sweep of road 'they 
were traversing, so intensely clear. Their horses and 
they seemed to be one. It was exhilarating and de- 
lightful beyond description. 

Carroll glanced at Blanche, to see if she were tired. 
She smiled radiantly at him, and they kept on. He 
thought her beyond all comparison the most beautiful 
girl he had ever seen. 

Thev came to one of the bridges spanning the road 
for equestrians. While they were galloping under it, 
Isabel’s sleigh was crossing it. Then the two roads, 
after leaving the bridge, made a wide curve side by 
side. 

Whether it was the sudden davsh of the sleigh over 
the bridge, or the bright red plumes breaking upon 
the startled vision of her excited horse, no one knew, 
but the spirited creature suddenly became unman- 
ageable, and, in Blanche’s effort to control it too 
quickly, it galloped across the sward to the drive. 

“Stop, Munson, stop!” cried Isabel, imperiously. 


416 


AFTERWARD. 


The sudden halting of the sleigh still further 
excited the Irightened animal, and, in a second, as it 
seemed to all, it had dashed against the Chubbock 
roans, and the next instant its rider was hurled 
against a pine. 

She lay motionless, her blue skirt stretched out 
on the patch of snow under the tree — her face down- 
ward. 

Carroll seemed momentarily paralyzed, but Isabel 
sprang out, and, rushing to Blanehe, sat down be- 
side her, lifting the pretty head into her lap. 

‘ ‘ She is dreadfully cut ! Poor Blanche ! ’ ’ said Isabel, 
solemnly. 

“Is she dead? ” asked Posey, in tremulous fright. 

“No, oh, no! ” said Isabel in genuine dismay, “but 
her beauty is ruined! Blanche, it is I ; don’t you 
know me?” she asked, presently, when Blanche 
feebly opened her eyes. 

Blanche tried to speak, but her mouth worked 
helplessly. 

“Here, Munson! Help Mr. Saxby lift Miss Aller- 
ton into the sleigh beside me. There, there, Blanehe,” 
said Isabel, tenderly putting her arm around her 
half fainting companion. “We will be as gentle a 
possible. Can you lean against me — so? Give me 
your veil, Posey.” 

Half supported by Isabel, and half by the high 
back of the sleigh, Blanche sat weak and moaning, 
but resolute to be taken home at once. 

“We can wait for an ambulance,” said Carroll 
“We could get one from the Presbyterian hospital in 
a few minutes.” 

The wounded girl waved her hand negatively. 

Thus Isabel drove with Blanche in the park, but in 
a very different way than she had expected. 

As the sleigh glided over the smoothly packed 
snow, and Carroll cantered after, both he and Isabel 


AFTERWARD. 


417 


were making a number of quick and cbaracteristic 
calculations that were not necessarily uncomplimen- 
tary to poor Blanche. 

While feeling sorry for the friend whom all the 
time she was pressing gently against her, Isabel was 
reflecting that this accident, however slight it might 
prove, would shut Blanche up for several weeks, and 
that her own opportunities with Carroll would be 
proportionate!}^ increased. Why should she not 
make the most of this precious time? Carroll was 
not engaged to Blanche. Blanche would have 
abundant offers that would, on the whole, suit her 
just as well. And then, without a word having been 
said on the subject, she knew that worldly wisdom 
took Carroll to Blanche and away from her. Yes, 
the chance was a fair one, and she would be a fool 
not to profit by it. Having thus made up her mind, 
she gave Blanche a series of additional squeezings 
and asked her how she felt. 

Although Blanche articulated something, Isabel 
could not understand. “Never mind, dear,” she said 
soothingly. “Do not try to speak.” 

Carroll looked down at the two figures before him, 
and felt that cowardly sense of freedom a pleasure- 
loving nature indulges in when a barrier, whether 
fancied or real, is removed between policy and mere 
inclination. If Blanche were disfigured, that fact, of 
course, put an end to any possibility of an alliance 
with the Allertons. Although Isabel was* not the 
only other young lady in the world, still he cherished 
the thought of her with great satisfaction. He 
smiled, unconsciously, over the deftness and practi- 
cality with which she had assisted Blanche. There 
had been kindness and promptness, but not a trace of 
sentiment. Would Isabel be like that with him if he 
lay sick or helpless ? No, if he read her aright, what 
deep sentiment she had would well over only to one 
person. He pictured the delightfulness of tender 


418 


AFTERWARD. 


words and tender looks from tkis bright creature, 
all warmth and glow and sweetness for him alone. 

Thus it happened that when Blanche reached home, 
Isabel and Carroll could hardly wait to pay their 
proper respects and give the necessary explanation 
to Mrs. Allerton, whose love in this crisis, I am glad 
to say, absorbed all minor considerations. 

In the interval while Blanche was being assisted 
up-stairs, Carroll asked Isabel if she would be at 
home that evening, and, being answered in the 
affirmative, he said a little tenderly, “May I come 
down for an hour or two ? ” 

“0, yes, do come. I shall be so loneh\ The others 
are going with papa to the theater.” 

One of those audible pauses followed, during which 
Carroll was content to look at Isabel, and she was 
delighted to be observed. 

Mrs. Allerton’s maid came down-stairs to thank 
them in her stead for their attentions, and to say 
that she hoped her daughter was not vserioush' 
hurt. 

“Give my love to Mrs. Allerton, Judith, and so 
much love and sympathy to Miss Blanche.” 

“Say to Mrs. Allerton, if you please,” said Carroll, 
“that I will call this evening to inquire after Miss 
Blanche.” 

Isabel gave him an odd little, furtive look, which 
he saw and for which he was glad. He would enjoy 
watching her if she were jealous. 

“I suppose we had better go,” said Isabel. 

Judith stood with folded hands and a manner 
which plainly told Isabel that certainly nothing more 
was expected of her. 

“I believe Blanche’s jaw is broken,” she said, as 
they went slowly down the stoop together, “and if 
it is, just like as not Mrs. Allerton will think that in 
?ome way we are responsible.” 


▲FTESWJLRD. 


419 


‘*You might just as easily have been injured as 
Miss Allerton,” said Carroll, with undue warmth, 
seeing that Isabel was safe and sound. 

“That is very true,’’ she said, peuvsively. 

He assisted her into her sleigh, stood a second till 
vshe drove off, and then mounted his horse in a verv 
gay mood, considering that Blanche had been so hurt 
while under his escort. 


CHAPTER YL 


A CLIMAX. 

After her daughter was in bed, and while waiting 
for the doctor, Mrs. Allerton had time to reflect on 
all that had happened. 

. Blanche’s face was certainly horribly bruised. 
There was an ugly gash in her chin, and her jaw, if 
not brcfken, was dislocated. 

This mother, who had looked upon her daughter’s 
beauty as enduring as life, fell into a state of abso- 
lute, unreasoning dismay. She was overwhelmed b^^ 
what she conceived her own misfortune. She at- 
tributed the accident wholly to Isabel. “The little 
vixen! “ she exclaimed, wrathfully. “I believe she 
tried to frighten the horse.” 

Blanche looked distressed at this accusation and 
shook her head as if to say “No.”- 

Mrs. Allerton was unconvinced. “You may be 
sure that she will make the most possible out of 
your accident to Mr. Saxby. She willpursuade him, 
if she can, that you are a perfect wreck.” 

Blanche smiled slightly in spite of her pain. She 
was in that tired state where the loss of her beautv 
would make very little difl'erence to her. 

“My dear, it will be no smiling matter if you are 
scarred for life.” 


430 


AFTERWARD. 


421 


At this juncture the doctor entered. 

He removed the bandage, looked serious when he 
saw the cut, and then, gently examining Blanche’s 
mouth, — the poor girl underwent this with great 
bravery, — he turned away with a sigh of relief and 
motioned Mrs. Allerton into the adjoining room. 

‘‘Her jaw is not broken, as I feared, but is dis- 
located. That will be all right. But the cut. It may 
leave a scar, and a long one.” 

‘‘Is there anything we can do to prevent such a 
disfigurement,” said Mrs. Allerton, clasping her 
hands. 

‘‘ In the first place she must not take a breath of 
cold ; but, even then, I cannot tell. Her face is cut 
to the bone.” 

Beckoning to Mrs. Allerton warningly, to remain 
behind, the doctor said cheerfulh^ as he came back: 

‘‘Now, Miss Blanche, we are going* to put you 
under the influence of ether ; then in a lew minutes, 
you can talk.” 

She smiled through her swimming tears. 

An hour later when she recovered consciousness, 
her jaw was set, the ugly wound sewed, and all that 
was visible of her sweet face looked lovelier than ever. 

The doctor’s orders were strict that she should 
not undergo a change of temperature in six weeks. 
So Mrs. Allerton gave up her winter’s social cam- 
paign, and sat down before her camp fires to invest 
the enemy in' the shape of a possible scar, with a 
vigilance that was not to be baffled. 

Early in the evening Carroll called. 

Mrs. Allerton saw’ him herself, her smiling face and 
nonchalant manner implying volumes ot good news. 
“You will be delighted to hear that my darling 
Blanche is doing beautifully. The shock has been 
very great, and she will have to keep her bed for an 
indefinite time, as the cut on her face requires an even 


422 


AFTERWARD. 


temperature. The doctor consoles Blanche, though, 
by telling her that she will be, if possible, more beau- 
tiful than ever when she is released. We feared at 
iirst that her jaw was broken. 

“And it is not?” asked Carroll with eager, pres- 
ent sympathy. 

“No, It was dislocated. It has been set success- 
fully. Indeed, the accident, though painful enough, 
is turning out so much better than I at first feared.” 

“I am delighted to hear such favorable news. I 
hope, dear Mrs. Allerton, that you will not hold me 
responsible, although I feel sadly mortified, and that 
I have not incurred your daughter’s ill-will.” 

“On the contrary, I entirely exonerate you. But 
Blanche is such an angel that she will not listen to a 
word against those ubiquitous Chubbocks. I can 
assure 3^011, Mr. Saxby, the^^ subject themselves to 
ver_v unpleasant remarks, driving as they do in every 
direction. Such young girls, too, with only the 
foot-man and the coachman!” 

“Would you tuck a maid in also? ” said Carroll, a 
trifle sarcastically. 

“No, what they need is some middle-aged relative 
who understands girls, to go about with them. I 
dare say, Mr. Saxby, that with your foreign preju- 
dices, they quite disgust you.” 

“I find them a very interesting study.” 

“It is so mortifying to the better class of Ameri- 
cans, though, to have girls who succeed in wedging 
themselves into good society act so questionably. 
Mr. Chubbock’s speculations the last six years have 
accomplished wonders for his bevy of daughters. 
Only, they do not marry.” She smiled significantly. 

Carroll looked a little uneasy and conscious. He 
rose to go, shortly. “Give my regards and best 
wishes for her recovery to Miss Allerton. Please 
present my apology that this accident should have 


AiXERWARD. 


423 


happened while she was out with me. I feel very 
much ashamed,’^ he added, pausing at the door, and 
looking contrite and handsome. 

“O, Blanche will be able to ride with you again by 
spring, I do not doubt. She bowed affably as he 
withdrew. 

“Now for my ubiquitous little Chubbock,’' he said 
to himself, running gaily down the stoop. 

What warmth and sumptuousness flashed out 
upon the night, as the butler threw the hospitable 
door open. Everything was soft and rich and full of 
color in this home. He led Carroll to the library 
where Isabel was alone. 

She rose from beside one of those nondescript 
tables which serve as a focus for a tall lamp. A rose- 
colored shade covered the globe, and she stood 
bathed in a pink, transforming halo which height- 
ened her whole expression. No sense of becoming 
maidenly simplicity deterred her from looking mag- 
nificent if she could. Although she wore no other 
jewels this night than rings, her hands displayed 
several with unique settings and brilliant stones. 
Her hands were beautiful, white, plump and delicate, 
and, like her voice, as soft as velvet. If she had 
always talked nonsense, it would have been a pleas- 
ure to hear her speak; but, as a rule, there was 
enough wisdom, apparently of the unpremeditated 
kind, in her remarks to always make one wonder 
what was coming next. 

“How is Blanche?” she inquired, coming straight 
to the subject of deepest interest. “I presume you 
have just come from there.” 

“She is doing capitally. Mrs. Allerton thinks she 
will be all right in a few weeks.” 

“I saw the doctor an hour ago,” said Isabel 
dubiously. “We chance to have the same doctor 
that the Allertons do. He spoke so discouragingly. 
I suppose he made the best of it to Mrs. Allerton. 


424 


AFTERWARD. 


Not that he doesn’t think that Blanche will get well. 
She is not at all dangerously injured. But her poor 
face! Posey is ill with a nervous headache, and 
Doctor Speedwell came directly here after leaving 
Blanche. So Mrs. Allerton thinks she will be as 
pretty as ever! 

Isabel sat back and gazed at Carroll in mute sor- 
row for the inevitable disappointment hanging over 
the Allertons. 

“Let us hope that she will,” he said, indifferently, 
picking up the book that Isabel had been reading. 
“Ah, Mr. Haggard’s ‘Jess.’ What do you think 
ofit?” 

“It is immensely interesting. I have just been 
re-reading some parts about Jess. The book is a de- 
lightful romance, and romance is said to be the cry- 
ing need of our day. We are so sadly mercantile, 
they say. Do you think so ? ” 

“Really, how can I tell, never having lived in any 
other age than my own? I have an idea, though, 
that the best matter for romances never gets into 
books. The very best stories can never be told.” 

“You think, then, that the romantic standard may 
be true? ” 

“Something is true, that, whether romantic ornot, 
is absorbingly interesting to the actors, and as im- 
probable to them, before it happens, as it would be 
to others. Interest and improbability are two of the 
chief objects in a romance.” 

“Those are the two chief objects to a gambler. I 
think the romance depends on the ideal, and that 
these other points are merely accessory. Take Jess. 

She loves because he is the only gentleman she 

has had the opportunity of meeting. She probably 
could not have loved him if she had been brought up 
in London. But, loving him, she does so absolutely, 
with all the powers of the strongest kind of a 


AFTERWARD. 


425 


nature. Then she turns around and sacrifices herself 
and her lover for a sister who is certahily not 
worth it.’* 

“ But you think this sacrifice is true to nature ? ” 

‘‘With a girl like Jess? ” 

Carroll nodded. 

She looked at him long and softly, and sinuouslv 
shook her head. “No. I think such characters in 
real life love in a splendidly selfish way. If Jess had 
been made real, the ideal would have been lowered, 
and the romance would have been spoiled.” 

“You may hold this opinion because you have the 
mercantile spirit of your age.” 

“I devoutly hope,” she said, gently clasping her 
jeweled hands, “that I may always have the good 
sense to live in the spirit of my age, whether right or 
wrong. Comfortable living comes from a just 
knowledge and application of the subtle relations of 
one’s surroundings. ” 

“ What about right living ? ” 

“Right living is harmonious living.” 

“ Your philosophy is Epicurean.” 

“I do not study abstract theories or live by them. 
I study people. I find that the most agreeable, good- 
natured and prosperous are like wind-mills. . They 
adjust themselves to currents. They enjoy every- 
thing themselves, and make the material comfort ot 
the theorists. However much the latter scorn their 
practice, they worship the results. Right and wrong 
action are wholly relative with the people whom I 
emulate. I include among them many who are 
called the best — the salt of the earth.” She laughed 
softly. 

Here was indeed a woman before whose tribunal 
nothing was to be feared — a delightful little nine- 
teenth-century pagan. Rosalia was just where 
Isabel would have left her had she been a man. If 
Isabel loved, although she would do so instinctively, 


426 


AFTERWARD. 


it would be after having satisfied all the nice ques- 
tions other judgment, prudence, and common-sense. 
Then she would give herself up to being as piquant 
and delicious in this as in everything else. He called 
her a “little devil” in the recesses of his heart — but 
with the full understanding that he did not want the 
society of angels. 

She felt, without quite comprehending, a latent 
timidity in him. His attitude toward her, in the 
many interviews they had now had, indicated an 
unwillingness to yield to her attraction which might 
either result from expediency or a prior claim which 
she was, however, satisfied did not exist through 
Blanche. She determined to give fuller rein to those 
subtle forces by which she held him, and thus lose 
him altogether or win him speedily. Her years, yes, 
her months were precious. One winter was all that 
she could afford for Carroll Sax by. To all intents 
and purposes she became the suitor. How near 
Carroll was to being won she little guessed. Such a 
change of places, under a due regard for existing 
forms, has brought about a surprising number of 
marriages. 

Carroll stayed late. Isabel’s soft voice, her gentle, 
contained manner, a magnetic charm that invested 
all she looked and what she implied, winged the min- 
utes and made a back-ground of delightful, possible 
sweetness, if all this half-reserve should cease. 

Their conversation grew more and more personal, 
while still clothed in purely impersonal language. 
Then it glided to the plays of the winter. 

Isabel, never afraid to criticize anything in the 
heavens above or the earth below, began to analvze 
Ellen Terry’s “Portia.” 

“It is superb, because you feel Ellen Terry in it all. 
This is quite right, until she pleads Antonio’s cause. 
Then her character and style fail, and she betrays 
her sex.” 


AFTERWARD. 


427 


“See/’ she said, rising, nnpremeditatedlv, appar- 
ently, “this is the way she speaks and acts.’’ 

She stood a moment with graceful abandon, as if 
surveying the part quickly, and then began, wonder- 
fully like the great actress in a certain quality and 
elegance of voice and intonation, yet investing the 
words with such an excess of womanly pleading that 
Portia’s disguise seemed extremely faulty. 

“You see, the hearer must feel that it is a woman 
pleadingj after all.” 

Carroll had risen, while she was reciting, to see her 
better, and stood leaning against the mantel. 

Isabel was such a good actress that she had 
thrown herself into the part thoroughly, which 
meant, however, on this occasion, all of herself. 
When she had finished, the faint glow through her 
colorless complexion, deepening her gray eyes and 
softening her lovely mouth, gave her a warmth and 
sweetness that the young man found irresistible. 

They stood gazing at each other an instant, Isabel 
all unconscious invitation, and Carroll, without ever 
being able to tell just how it had come about, 
stepped forward and took her pretty hands in his. 

Another instant and she was folded in his arms, 
and he had given her a kiss, and then another and 
another. 

An hour ded. 

As the chimes of Grace church were softly tuning 
midnight, Carroll was plighting his troth to a de- 
lighted and willing pair of cars that drank in all the 
sweetness of his raptures as matters of course, but 
hearing far more intently and complacently of the 
magnificence that should enshrine his future wife. 


CHAPTER VII. 


• YAKTOUS AXxXOUXCEMENTS. 

There came a day in March 'in which the wdiole 
orbs terraruni, in Mrs. Allerton’s limited definition 
of that comprehensive term, was transformed, and 
for the worst. 

As blessings never come singly, so calamities, in 
their unwelcome visitations, usually come in large 
families and with a power of indefinite multiplica- 
tion. It is true that the greatest misfortunes some- 
times prove to be the choicest blessings, and that 
golden privileges often have a metallic weight that 
crushes to the earth. But, as everything in this life 
takes its color absolutely from our present point of 
view, Mrs. Allerton was to be sincerely pitied for her 
dismay, as one cherished idol after another fell from 
its antiquated niche, and, in breaking, revealed itself 
but a god of clay. 

I'heir lamily, their position, their wealth, were 
faits accomplisy and were as irrevocable as the many 
years in which she had complacently enjoyed and ap- 
preciated these rights; but rights, as we understand 
them, never fill the measure of our aspirations. We 
are so constituted, that we are every one in search of 
an unknown quantity which when found will beequal 
to happiness. Through eighteen years she had nur- 
tured, trained and caressed Blanche for a brief reign 

428 ® 


AFTERWARD, 


429 


of beauty and conquest which would decide the re- 
mainder of the child’s life and satisfy her own am- 
bition, all to have Blanche ride in the park on the 
very eve of triumph and ruin her beautiful face. For 
five long years, ever since Mr. John Saxby had be- 
come a member of the Stock Exchange, of the Prod- 
uce Exchange, and, in short, one of the recognized 
leading financiers of New York, she had, after mature 
deliberation, decided that Blanche should marry 
Carroll, and that what the Saxby millions lacked in 
prestige, the Allerton family and pride would supple- 
ment. Blanche could alwa^^s have her cards en- 
graved, “Mrs. Carroll Allerton-Saxby.” 

There is a congealing quality in the assumption of 
social autocracy which freezes the warmth of the best 
intentions. Though John and Rebecca coincided 
with Mrs. Allerton’s worldly wisdom, rather too 
boldly intimated, they did theirpart so perfunctorily, 
owing to an undefined but irritating quality in that 
lady^s attitude, that they occasionally wished that 
Carroll would, independently of them all, describe 
the arc of his own circle. That was what they had 
done, and they had never been the worse for it. 

When Carroll did this very thing, John’s displeas- 
ure was of the flinty, unyielding kind, and Rebecca 
went about her palatial abode in a dumb amaze- 
ment that obstinately refused to trace relations be- 
tween cause and effect. 

Mrs. Allerton sat as if on a throne of unbending 
displeasure and scorn in an arm-chair in Blanche’s 
room, declaiming on the well-known business turpi- 
tude of Mr. Chubbock, on the monotony and same- 
ness of the sisters, and on Isabel’s premeditated 
villainy toward Blanche. 

“But, mamma!” expostulated Blanche, “there 
was never anything between Carroll and me, and I 
doubt if there ever would have been.” 


430 


AFTERWARD. 


“Yoti knew the expectations of both families,” 
said Mrs. Allerton severely. “Mrs. Saxby is sick 
with the shock and the disappointment.” 

“It is not my fault,” said Blanche, meekly. “Al- 
though I suppose Carroll understood as well as I 
did that, in mere extraneous matters, it was desir- 
able for us to marry, still, mamma, I think I know 
that we both became aware, on the night of the din- 
ner party, of an antagonism.” 

“That was a fancy, a mere fancy!” Mrs. Allerton 
waved her hand impatiently. 

Blanche privately had a haunting sentiment con- 
nected with the pleasantness of the park ride, and 
wondered herself, if, after all, in time, she might not 
have learned to love Carroll. Still she was heart-free 
and young. 

If she had been allowed, she would then and there 
have written a congratulatory letter to Isabel, every 
word of which would have been honest, in answer to 
a cooing announcement from that damsel, at which 
Mrs. Allerton’s irate eye was frequently glancing. 

While the conversation was going on, broken by 
long intervals of silence, during which Blanche felt 
thoroughly uncomfortable and as if she had the 
weight on her pretty shoulders of being the cause of 
an awful disappointment to her mother, and in 
which Mrs. Allerton became entirely unconscious of 
her surroundings and saw Isabel flaunting the Saxby 
wealth before her very eyes, Mark was taking a 
brisk walk down the avenue to add his quota of 
unpleasant news to his sister’s bulletin. 

If he had known how inauspicious the day was, he 
would doubtless have deferred his announcement. So 
it is that the best work at cross purposes for their 
own interests as well as those of others. 

Mark only felt the exhilaration from the glorious 
winter day, a serenity and joyousness that covered 


AFTERWARD. 


431 


even his sister’s habitual coldness with such a man- 
tle of suavity that he walked straight into her pres- 
ence with the courage of a boy who supposes him- 
self able to convince the whole world of the virtue of 
any hobby he is riding. 

Ho w relieved Blanche felt when the butler announced 
her uncle! If alone, she could dispel that slavish, 
marketable feeling so many sweet girls are com- 
pelled to have, when some matrimonial scheme of 
which they are the center, has gone wrong. Her 
luxurious room, her dainty clothing, her cultivated 
beauty, — and beauty, dear reader, in these days of a 
complex civilization, has little hope if rustic or un- 
adorned, — ^what were they worth in her mother’s eyes 
if they did not secure a brilliant marriage ? Blanche 
buried her poor pale face in her hands and cried a 
little for shame at her helplessness, and wished she 
were a boy. While she was in this melancholy frame 
J udith came in with the doctor, who chided her for her 
discouragement. After a cheery talk on various 
bright subjects, he said : 

“I have a piece of news to tell you.” 

“Bad news or good news? I would rather not 
hear it if it is very bad,” she said, dolefully. 

Dr. Speedwell smiled and said nothing for a full 
minute; then he slowly enunciated, “It is very 
good.” 

“ Tell me right away, then.” ' 

“There won’t be the trace of a scar on your bonny 
face; only a dimple in the side of your chin which will 
make you more distractingly pretty than ever. I did 
not dare tell you till to-day, for fear you would 43e 
careless. What do you say to such a piece of 
news?” 

“Well, if it will make mamma happy, it is very 
good news indeed.” 

“One more month in the house, and then we will 
show the world the fairest Easter lily in the city.” 


432 


AFTERWARD. 


Judith hovered about Blanche, adjusting her hair, 
her shawl, and doing numberless pretty acts for the 
young mistress who was to come off with such fly- 
ing colors after all. Servants, like dogs, when they 
are faithful, are absolute in their devotion. To 
Judith, the doctor’s announcement made an epoch. 

Meanwhile, Mark had not been long with his sister 
before the mercury of his good spirits began to de- 
scend until it marked temperate; there, by an effort 
acquired through years, he kept them. No one in 
this world should deprive him of the power to view 
life in a bright, if not a high, light. 

He asked dutifully and lovingly about Blanche, in- 
quired if Mr. Allertonwere gone down-town, listened 
with ill-suppressed amusement to her version of 
Carroll and Isabel’s engagement, and could not fail 
to see that it made an unfavorable prelude for his 
own avowal. Should he defer it? No, he had come 
there to tell it, and tell it he would, and have it over 
with. 

He got up and walked the length of the drawing- 
room, his hands behind him.. How had it happened 
that his sister and he were children of the same 
parents? There was the indubitable, instinctive, 
almost unreasonable affection existing between them, 
considering their long separations and opposite 
temperaments. There was the family intimacy, 
which had to continue, if they kept up any inter- 
course whatever. Would his marriage snap the bond 
permanently asunder, or would his sister’s healthy 
and hitherto constant affection for him be stronger 
than her pride? With the thought of Madeline ever 
in his heart, he was, truth compels me to say, cheer- 
fully prepared for the worst. 

“Charlotte,” he said, stopping in front of her, and 
feeling timid through his sympathy for her, as she 
sat upright with two bright red spots on her usually 


AFTERWARD. 


433 


white cheeks, and with a desperate, disappointed 
pride in her cold, blue eyes, “Charlotte, 3^ou used to 
urge me to marry. 

“Oyes, I used to do so. But, since you became 
such a Bohemian, Mark, I have learned to think it 
fortunate that you remained single.’’ Then, as he 
continued to look at her in asolicitous way, she said, 
“Have you anything to tell me ? ” 

“I have. Charloti<“. I am engaged to marry Mrs. 
Madeline Winchester.” 

Mrs. Allerton’s whole body settled into a kind of 
collapse. Her shoulders droop d. She folded one 
^ hand over the other with desperate energy. The 
muscles of her cheeks and chin quivered. 

“What next, I wonder!” she finally ejaculated, 
looking away from him. 

“Have you met Mrs. Winchester, since her return, 
Charlotte? ” 

“I have had no wish to m«et her. I remember 
what she was, perfectly, and will always be — the wife 
of a defaulter.” 

“Charlotte,” — there was a warning in his tone, 
while it was still kindly, — “Mrs. Winchester’s name 
and all that belongs to her dignity and honor are as 
sacred to me at this moment as they will be when 
she becomes my wife. I want to ask one thing of 
you for my sake. Will you call on her? ” 

She stared at him for several seconds, then rose to 
her feet, and, still looking at him, said, “No I ” 

Mark paused a brief instant, his face white to the 
lips. Then he turned and walked out of the house. 

He retraced his steps up the avenue in a very differ- 
ent mood. True, he had been awkward and precipi- 
tate, but he owed it to Madeline not to delay the 
communication any longer. But he had not felt in 
such an inward turmoil for vf^ars. He walked him- 
self out of this agitation after a while, and then, 


i34 


AFTERWARD. 


once for all, as Madeline had settled the same matter 
in Interlachen, he dismissed his annoyance perma- 
nently from his- mind. Feeling neither particularly 
loving nor angr}" toward his sister, he left matters to 
shape their own couise. 

If contrary winds were blowing in every other 
direction they did not fail to find out the Chubbock 
circle, for on the evening of the very day on which 
these various conversations were occurring, Timothy 
Chubbock came home late, and, supposing that his 
daughters had all retired, ordered the house closed 
and went slowly forward to the library. 

Isabel, however, leaning over the banister, sayv 
him enter, for something in his face and manner the 
last two or three days had awakened her solicitude. 

She loved and despised her father at once. Her ad- 
miration of his successes did not blind her compre- 
hension of his essential insignificance. A person far 
less shrewd than Isabel only had to look into his 
opaque, brown eyes, to see the heavy, pendulous 
under lip and retreating jaw, the deep creases in his 
cheeks and neck, to know that cunning, coarsene:5S 
and suavity combined had been the source of his 
wealth. 

Even bad men turn away in disgust from their sins 
when they are too suggestively personated. About 
Timothy Chubbock there was something that vul- 
garized and minimized his power. If ever he fell in 
the arena of speculation, the thumbs of merciless 
fortune hunters would be turned down. 

There'is never a man, however obtuse apparently, 
but can read the signs of his own popularity. No 
one believed more firmly than Timothy that if his 
corners were disastrously broken, his career would 
be forever ended. 

Isabel remained leaning on the banister a few min- 
utes, thoughtfully listening. Then she softly crept 


AFTERWARD. 


435 


down-stairs in her slippered feet, glided through the 
long, dark hall, and peeped in at the librar_v door, 
whieh was ajar. 

Her father stood on the rug in front of the fire, his 
back turned to her. In the mirror above the mantel, 
she studied the reflection of the somber, troubled, 
heavy face. He was in deep, abstracted, and yet 
apparently confused thought. Once or twice he 
passed his hand wearih^ over his forehead, sighed, 
and relapsed again into a profound rever3^ He 
walked un and down the room irresolutely a few" 
times, and then, suddenly setting his heavy lips to- 
gether, drew a pistol from his pocket and began 
examining it. 

She pushed the door open, walked in in her long, 
white wrapper, her blonde hair hanging down her 
back in a thick braid ready lor the night, and faced 
him. 

Neither spoke for a second — an hour, as it seemed 
to the vStartled girl. Then she said firmly, ‘‘P'ather, 
put that pistol down.’"’ 

He laid the pistol on the mantel. 

Going to him, she pressed him gently into a chair, 
and, sitting dowm on his knee, put her arm around 
his shoulder and said, “Now, papa dear, tell me all 
about it.” 

There was a marvelous resemblance betw^een them, 
as they sat there face to face, and the intuitive 
knowdedge which each had of the other made few- 
w^ords necessary at any time between them. 

“Well, daughter, if you want to know, the game 
is up.” 

“ Have you failed ? ” 

“ I shall to-morrow, if I live.” 

“ You must live, and you must not fail. What has 
happened ? ” 

“I have put three millions into w^heat wdiich must 
now be thrown on the market with wheat pourii g 


436 


AFTERWARD. 


into New York in floods from every direction. All 
that T have is so tied up that I can’t avail myself of 
a cent.” 

“But, papa, wHat are three millions to you?” 
asked Isabel, magnificently. 

“They are the bottom cube in a block house which 
will come tumbling over all our heads if it is drawn 
out. That is what three millions are to me.” 

She gazed at him with the earnestness and intent- 
ness of a sphynx. “Must it fall right away, 
papa?’^ 

“With a crash. The evening papers, to-morrow, 
will be full of it. Good Lord, child, half down-town 
suspects it, already. We have shorted the market to 
the last extremity. We have sucked in all the small 
dealers, and still wheat comes pouring in, 6.s if the 
seven years of plenty were beginning. To corner it, 
day by day, we have had to keep making cash pay- 
ments. Day before yesterday, the Guarantee Bank, 
which has backed our combination so far, reached its 
limit. Yesterday, Craven Brothers inve.sted their 
last penny. To-day, I threw mine into the pool, and 
wheat closed at two, twelve and a half, only to be 
followed by the news that a frCvsh lot would be 
thrown on the market in the morning. We haven’t 
a cent to buy it with. Our brains, our honor, and 
our money-bags have been dropped in thismammotli, 
dealtothe tuneof ten million dollars. Unless a miracle 
happens we’.ve got to break to-morrow, and no 
miracle can happen.” 

“Well, then, papa, I’d break and make another 
fortune. What you have done once, you can do 
again.” 

“I can never do it again. I tell you every nerve 
has been on the rack for two years, and they won’t 
work. They won’t work as they have been doing. 
If T had been the Timothy Chubbock of five years 
ago, this would never have happened.” 


AFTERWARD. 


437 


“Haven’t you any friends, papa? ” 

“Friends! Tve heard ol triendship among thieves, 
but I have never seen it. My losses will be the gain 
of somebody else like myself. We don’t deal in 
values, child, down-town ; we deal in expectations. 
Our money swells from losses and not from gains. 
There will be some new millionaires in New York to- 
morrow, where there was one called Timothy Chub- 
bock to-day. It is loss, loss, loss, to the multitude, 
and gain to the few. To-morrow, I join the multi- 
tude. I’ve been a fool, Isabel. You liked your 
father’s money-making power, did n’t you ? And not 
mueh else in him. Well, that’s at an end.” 

She knew that he was hungry for some word of 
affeetion from her — for a kiss; but she eould not 
give either just then. What was to beeome of her? 
Would Carroll Saxby marry her now? What would 
the other five girls do? She seemed to see Patty 
wandering in forlorn pride through the streets, with 
the Book of Heraldry under her arm, and Maud and 
Annie in perpetual tea rs and gloom. For a moment, 
the pistol seemed a resouree for two. 

“Papa,” she said at length, “tell me soberly 
W'hether there will be anything left. Shall we — shall 
we be rich compared with ver3" poor people? ” 

“We shall be the poorest of the poor — now do you 
understand?” and the father, irritated at this 
judicial calmness and questioning, allowed her to feel 
that he wanted her to get up. 

But she sat still. She had another question. “I 
thought you settled the house on us girls ? ” 

“Sol did. But what is a house like this with 
nothing to support it? It eosts us fifty thousand a 
year at the rate we have been living.” 

“Now see here, papa, you are desperate. If you 
ean save the house with what is in it, for us, I’ll be 
Timothy Chubbock, Junior.” 


438 


AFTERWARD. 


The cold, bright gray eyes met the blurred and 
troubled brown ones; a temporary look of relief 
settled on the ugly features so like and unlike Isabel’s, 
whose faee had sharpened rigidly in this interview 
and was for the time being momentarily devoid of 
ail}' latent suggestion of the heaviness and coarse- 
ness always so marked in her father’s. 

“Seal that with a kiss, my girl,” said the father, 
mournfully. 

She bent over and kissed him. 

They sat and talked into the small hours, Isabel 
listening with the inherited intelligence and shrewd- 
ness of a financier, her father leaning on her atten- 
tion and companionshij) with something of the for- 
lorn comfort some men might have taken in a son 
under like circumstances. 

Blanche wept in the morning to be a boy, that she 
might be forever saved from the despotism of matri- 
monial schemes. Isabel sat tearless, one small hand 
clenched into the other, in the darkness, and long 
after Blanche was asleep, wishing she were a man in 
order to plunge in and through the maelstrom in 
which her father had been wrecked. But noneofthis 
desperation appeared on the surface while she was in 
the librar\^ 

Afte ra while they relapsed into silence, both look- 
ing into the fire, the last embers of which were dving 
out one by one, fit emblems of the ebb in their fort- 
unes. 

“Isabel, why don’t you go to bed ?” said her father 
at length. 

“ I will go, when you do.” 

“I want to be alone a little while.” 

“You can’t be left alone to-night, papa. To-mor- 
row you will go down-town and face llie worst, .mid 
then yo^^ will come home all right. I must see you 
through rny part of it.” She took his hand, lying 
nerveless ly over the arm of his chair. 


AFTERWARD. 


43d 


He returned her clasp, convulsively. 

After another pause he said, a little huskily, 
“What are we going to do with the other girls, 
Isabel ? 

“Send them into the country the first thing in the 
morning, to stay until all is settled. And I’ll meet 
what I can, side by side with you, if you will promise 
me not to take your life. 

“You’ll do that anyway, child, and I’ll try to be a 
man. But Isabel, there have been intervals, seconds 
onl^, when I’ve lost my mind during the last twenty- 
four hours. Well, let us go up-stairs. It’s gloomy 
and cold down here. See, the hre is out.’’ 

He reached up and turned out the gas, took her 
hand, and they walked through the dark hall and up 
the broad stair-case. 

“Now, papa. I’ll give you just five minutes to get 
into bed.’’ All the melody and sweetness of her 
beautiful voice were thrown into these words, all the 
softness of manner and affection with which a girl, a 
born actress, could invest them, and Timothy Chub- 
bock, under her influence, felt soothed and calmed as 
he had not in days. 

She -went into his room punctually to the second, 
drew an arm-chair to his bedside, and, sitting down, 
said, “Now give me your hand, papa dear, and I 
will watch beside you while you get a little sleep.’’ 

“ But you — you will be sick to-morrow ! ’’ 

“No matter about me. You need all your brains 
for to-morrow. Now try to sleep.’’ 

The soft pressure of that magnetic hand, the gentle 
stroking of the fevered pulse, were lihe a charm. 
Never had Isabel shown herself so tender to him 
before. 

He fell asleep all at once. When his heavy breath- 
ing told her she had a respite from her watchfulness, 
she rose, and walked up and down. When the morning 


440 


AFTERWARD. 


sounds began to break the silence, after dropping 
the heavy curtains over the windows, she crept into 
Jeannette’s room and wakened her. 

Jeannette opened her drowsy lids, and seeing 
Isabel’s intense look and the black rings under her 
sister’s eyes, sat up, and said, “Are you ill, Isabel? ” 

“No,” and then the two girls had a hurried confer- 
ence, and presently, when Jeannette came in to take 
Isabel’s vigil, the latter went and wakened the other 
sisters, and executed her intentions so successfully 
that at eight o’eloek all had departed, and she wa's 
baek in her chair beside her father, as calm as she 
had been the night before when the blow first struek 
her. 

He wakened presently. Looking at her a long 
timey without speaking, he said, finally, “My girl, 
you are worth a fortune to any man. Order my 
breakfast up here, and then go and lie down. I am 
all right now.” 

“Are you sure?” She looked at him intently. 

“Yes. Last night’s sleep will do me a week. I 
couldn’t fire that pistol if I wanted to this morning. 
As sure as my name is Timothy Chubbock I’ll make 
you an heiress yet. But I’ve got to go down to the 
bottom first.” 

“Now you are the dearest, bravest old popsy that 
ever lived,” said Isabel, ringing for the eook. “The 
girls are all gone, so you have nothing to fear at 
home.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


ISABEL. 

That afternoon, newsboys all over the citv were 
crying the name ot Timothy Chiibbock. Some of the 
papers contained rough wood cuts of the great mil- 
lionaire which did not enhance the few personal at- 
tractions he had. All his family history was para- 
graphed under the heading: “Marvelous Rise of a 
Self-made Man.” 

Poor Patty, cloistered under the shadow of the 
Adirondacks, read how old New Yorkers remem- 
bered the well known and buxom figure of her ma- 
ternal grandmother who, in the good old times, 
drew water, in her bare feet, from one of the pottery 
fountains. All that Patty recalled of this ancestor 
was her stout proportions encased in the heaviest 
and richest black silk, her awful dignity, palatial 
suite of rooms at one of the leading family hotels, 
and the still awe felt by the sisters because they 
were commanded to stand in her presence. 

During that fatal day, a heavy snow fell. 

When her father was gone, Isabel wandered dream- 
ily from room to room. She could not sleep, she 
could not eat. A still despair that settled her face 
in rigid, inflexible lines, filled her heart. Her present 
had been engulfed, as it were, in a moment. Would 
Carroll call that morning ? If he did, should she see 
him ? 


441 


442 


afterward. 


As the hours passed and he did not come, she took 
for granted that he had already heard the hated news. 
A revulsion of feeling set in. Not that she loved him 
much. Isabel loved no one deeply but herself, but 
self-love often has, however, tremendous simulations. 
Her pride was like a knotted whip — it lashed her into 
a fury of agony. 

It chanced that the doorbell did not ring once, all 
the morning. It would surely be night, she thought, 
beforeher father would comeback. She would go out, 
wander through the streets — anywhere, where the 
cold wind could fan her face. 

Wrapped and veiled almost beyond recognition 
she went out alone into the storm. Where should 
she go? Ah, she would take the cars to the park. It 
would be deserted on a day like this. How good the 
keen, driving snow-laden wind would feel! 

She went in at the Sixth-Avenue entrance. The 
evergreens along the terrace commanding the lake 
were bowed under their white burden. The frozen 
surface of the water spread an even, deserted expanse 
in its winding gorge. The main walks had been re- 
cently shoveled, so that her way was not much im- 
peded, and yet familiar landmarks were so obliter- 
ated that she had to watch her course. Occasionally, 
she came upon a solitary policeman, who glanced at 
her, and then passed on. The park was virtually 
given up to the snow, the little brown birds, and 
herself. 0, if she could only feel the dullness of the 
intense fatigue that made her ache all over. That 
future about which she had given such grand promi- 
ses to her father! It stretched like a soaring, blank 
wall before her. The great house might be given up 
to boarders; of course that was all they could do 
with it, if they stayed there; or, perhaps they could 
rent it and go away to some remote country place 
to live. And then what would life be, away from 


AFTERWARD. 


448 


everybody? Everybody meant tbe gay world in 
which she had alvva3^s supposed it was her inevitable 
lot, fixed as fate, to .shine and rule. 

She could not make Carroll Saxbv marry her. 
Would she, if she were a man, marr^' the daughter of 
a bankrupt father ? No, a thousand times, no ! So, 
with a mental justice which she alwa\’s exercised, 
and to which her conduct gave little clue, she fought 
with her wishes as futile, that A^esterday had seemed 
as certain as the substantial home where beauty and 
luxury reigned, and sought to give up her lover with 
the same horrible certainty with which the night be- 
fore she had abandoned other prospects. Life could 
never be what it had been, unless she made an im- 
mediate and brilliant marriage. They would have to 
be a new famih^ twice over; and how vert' new thcA" 
were, even Isabel did not know yet. 

/Those pigeon holes of great newspapers where all 
the family skeletons of social and business aspirants 
are kept duly inventoried awaiting death or failure, 
to break upon the gaping curiosit^^ of the world, full- 
fledged, like some phoenix, at that most inopportune 
time of all — when a family is either very sad or very 
miserable — of such cyclopaedias of the living Isabel 
had not the remotest suspicion. Like many another 
complacent maiden, she thought that her little world 
believed at least half the good things that it was a 
Chubbock trait for the Chubbocks to believe of them- 
selves. 

She lost her way all at once — doubling upon her 
steps, and coming back to a sequestered path leading 
through a dell from which she had started a half 
hour before. How had she come there? She gazed 
around her in blank bewilderment. How still itAvas, 
as if she AA^ere the only person in the world ! The 
trees looked friendly and warm in their close, furry 
mantle of snow. Her fraternal instincts reached out 


444 


AFTERWARD. 


.o these mute witnesses of her struggle; in some in- 
scrutable way the\" gave her comfort. She turned 
back and came under a low bridge witlj a wide stair- 
case leading to the East drive, and then, all at once, 
her mind was clear. With the passing away of her 
perplexity, she sat down on one of the steps, utterly 
iatigned and indifferent. 

All around her, the marble tiles and steps were 
padded with whitest cushions softer than velvet. 
Above her was a blinding swirl of feathery flakes danc- 
ingso closely together that a few feet higher up made 
a thick cloud of pale gray. Not a sound. The desola- 
tion was awful. 

She lifted her veil and looked upon it all, until its 
appalling negation of everything bright and warm 
and full of color seemed to congeal her very thought. 
She wished she could freeze to death there. 

Isabel was not the only lady who had sought the 
park. She had gone thither with the first trouble of 
her life that seemed mightier than her own powers of 
resistance. The longer she remained, the more 
gigantic grew its proportions. 

Madeline, looking from her windows on Fifth ave- 
nue, saw before her the wide expanse of the park. 
Its snow laden trees, its open glades and the memory 
of walks and drives with which she had been familiar 
from childhood, filled her with an irresistible desire 
for a walk too. Her action seconded her thought, 
and in a few minutes she had also entered the park. 
She wandered hither and thither, rejoicing in the 
quiet, the whiteness and her apparent absolute po.s- 
session. 

By-and-by she came out upon the Mall, walked 
back and forth a few mi unites where she could enjoy 
its rows of pine trees, wierdly transformed now, and 
looking like lines of white-robed Druids standing in 
silent worship, and then, crossing the open space 
where the East and the West drives diverge, she 


AFTERWARD. 


445 


reached the flight of stairs at whose foot Isabel was 
sitting, a tired, dejected little heap of humanity 
whom she entirely failed to recognize. 

Her sympathies were at once awakened. Here 
was some despairing woman who had come thither 
in trouble, as she had in serene peace of mind. Filled 
with the tenderest solicitude, she went d( vn the 
cushioned steps so softly that the abstracted, dis- 
couraged girl heard no sound, was conscious of no 
presence, until Mrs. Winchester stood before her. 

She looked up, startled ; but, when her gaze met 
the gentle, appealing eyes above her, she felt that 
sudden and overwhelmingconfidence and helplessness 
which the most self-reliant sometimes experience, if 
they suddenly come heart to heart with a nature 
greater than their own, and when they suppose 
themselves forsaken. The longer she had sat there, 
the more she had felt as if she had a brand upon her 
which would make her shunned and shunning. 

“What is it, dear?” and Madeline sat down in the 
snow beside Isabel, and drew the white, tearless face 
against her own. 

Not since the days of Isabel’s earliest recollection, 
had anyone mothered her. She herself had caressed 
others, for her own selfish purposes, hundreds of 
times, but who had ever taken her in their arms be- 
fore, and spoken to her in tones and words full of 
that unexf)lainable and indescribable sweetness 
which can come onlyfroma woman overflowing with 
sympathy and who is at leisure from herself? 

Isabel began to cry. She thought of all the petty 
insinuations that she had taken a mischievous pleas- 
ure in venting ever since Mrs. Winchester’s return, of 
her tirades against learned women, and the moneyed 
uses to which such cleverness was put oftener than 
not. And here she was, poor! Ah, what a different 
tiling is poverty when it is ours and not another’s — 
when the poor th^t we have always with us is our 


446 


afterward. 


very own self. She felt sopoorin pocket; it was the 
only thing in this world that could make Isabel feel 
poor in spirit. 

“Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard yet?” she 
said at length. 

“I know nothing, my dear. I supposed that you 
were one ol the most envied girls in New York. 1 will 
not say the happiest, for I have not thought you 
Ifappy.” 

Isabel looked up for an instant. How had this 
Mrs. Winchester been able to read her like that? 
Had she read all her little maneuvers equally well? 
Suddenly she felt the vulgarity of assumptions in 
questions, manners, and looks she had carried off 
with an air of such complacent superiority. And 
this woman — this lady — liad been- still and sweet 
and unruffled under it all, not because she had under- 
stood, but because it was all so puerile. She felt 
wretchedly mean and self-conscious, and began to 
lose the solace she had taken from the sAunpathy. 

She rose, wiped her eyes, and mustering herself, 
said coldly : 

“You have been very kind, Mrs. Winchester. I 
must not keep you here. I must go home, too.” 

“You must let me take you home. Y'ou are not 
well. We can walk down to the entrance where I 
will call a cab.” 

Madeline did not wait for Isabel to refuse, but 
drew an arm within her own, holding the cold .little 
hand in her warm one, and leading the silent girl 
through that same lonely dell where she had stood 
in such forsaken discouragement a little while ago. 

“Papa has failed, Mrs. Winchester,” said Isabel, 
abruptly, after several minutes. 

“And you feel so sorry for him? I am sorry, too.” 

This was worse and worse. Her chief sorrow was 
for herself. After warding off the disgrace of suicide, 
and seeing herfather fortified for the day down-town, 


AFTERWARD. 


447 


her thoughts had left him absolutely, and had 
centered upon resources to be tried, and the downfall 
of her own personal hopes. 

“You think me better than I am,” she said spas- 
modically. “ I have been thinking of the future, and 
I don’t see how I can help it, either.” 

“Neither do I. I forgot that you are not as old as 
I am,” and she pressed Isabel’s hand. If she could 
only help this bright, cold nature into that life which 
is sealed except to those who undergo tribulation. 
And if Isabel could help Carroll. Poor Rebecca! was 
Madeline’s next thought, for the heart endowment 
of this friend had been lavished and was destined to 
be, in her estimation, on soil that would give but 
poor returns. Her next thought was one of chance, 
for was not the most blessed giving, of whatever 
kind, that which hoped for no reward? Was not 
that indeed the only giving? 

“Why do you trouble yourself about me, Mrs. 
Winchester? I have been rude to \^ou. I have never 
had any sympathy from anybody, and I can get 
along without it very well.” 

“ No you can’t,” said Madeline, firmly. “You do 
not at any time want so much that it will make you 
weak ; but you will want and need a great deal, all 
through life. As for your having been rude — you are 
very young, my dear, and you have no mother.” 

“No. 0, Mrs. Winchester, if you knew what it is to 
grow up A^our very own way. That is what we girls 
have done. We have all pulled apart; and now how 
are we to get along together, in close quarters?” 

Madeline smiled a little at this trouble which 
nevertheless might be a very real one. 

“Will you let me try to be a motherto you through 
this crisis? I have suffered a great deal, as you know, 
and those who have suffered the most should help 
the most. Otherwise how would trouble fit us for 
the kingdom of heaven ? ” 


448 


AFTERWARD. 


What capacity for real affection Isabel had was 
stirred. Her cold, sensuous, intellectual nature was 
softened for the moment. A genuine, if narrow 
loyalty to Madeline was awakened. She poured out 
her perplexities, her mortification — her questioning, 
even, concerning Carroll. 

She never could make the highest, finest type of 
woman; that Madeline knew, as Carroll could never 
be the highest type of man. But she could become a 
tremendously uselul woman, and a woman of great 
influence. In what way could she be helped ? 

“My dear, I would not mistrust Mr. Saxby until 
there was absolute occasion for doing so. Wait till 
he proves to you that a little wealth, more or less, 
or a little worldly success, more or less, could make 
a difference. If he is that kind of man, you are better 
off without him.” 

Such Quixotism met with no response. If Carroll 
crave her up, the cup of her humiliation would be 
full. 

JVradeline continued : 

‘‘We are all created for a purpose — everyone. Not 
one of us is allowed to live in this world for mere 
pleasure, either. If we seek it, we shall certainly lose 
it. Try to find out what you were made for, at this 
crisis, my dear.” 

“I have been trying all day,” said Isabel, dolefully, 
“and I haven’t the remotest idea.” 

“You were made to lead an active life. I do not 
want to shock you, but, if you do not grow into a 
very good and useful woman, you will become a 
wicked woman — as God counts wickedness. You 
know your powers, Isabel, as well as you will when 
you are forty. If you use them conscientiously, 
the way will open day by day for their fuller and bet- 
ter action. It would be a presumptuous thing for one 
person to decide definitely for another. Each must 
take that responsibility for herself.” 


AFTERWARD. 


449 


“What a very serious, matter-of-fact thing living 
is, as soon as one loses wealth,” was Isabel’s upper- 
most reflection. 

They reached’tbe park entrance. The drive down 
to Madison square over the stony pavement pre- 
vented further conversation. 

When Madeline reached home, she found Mr. and 
Mrs. Saxby buoyant. The former handed her an 
evening paper, and, pointing to a leader in staring, 
bold letters, said, “Read that! ” 

“I am very sorry for the young ladies,” said 
Madeline, warmly, when she had finished. 

“Will do them good — do them good!” said John, 
emphatically. 

“You forget about Carroll,” said Madeline. 

“No, I don’t! I hope this will put a break upon 
him. He was rushing that disgraceful engagement 
so tremendously, that he declared he would be mar- 
ried in the summer.” 

“Do you think, Madeline, under the circumstances, 
he ought to marry Isabel?” Rebecca suddenly 
dropped her eyes. 

“Ought to marry her! Whyiiot?” 

“O, it’s the blood,” said John impatiently. “She 
might be as poor as a church mouse for aught Re- 
becca or I would care, but whenever I have looked 
at Timothy Chubbock this winter — ugh! I could 
think of nothing but a toad ! ” 

“Hush, John, ’’said Rebecca. “Believeme, Madeline, 
the failure in itself, which, however, is horrible, does 
not influence us. We want an excuse; we feel desper- 
ate over this engagement. I’m sure I’ve always been 
fond of Isabel, but to call her my daughter!” Re- 
becca’s pretty chin trembled and her eyes filHd. 

“ The failure is bad,” said Madeline, “but I believe 
that eventually you would both be proud of Isabel, 
her father notwithstanding.” 

29 


450 


AFTERWARD. 


John and Kebecca looked coldly away. If she could 
not give the advice they wanted, she would better 
not give any. 

When she had locked herself in her room, she took 
out the locket containing Carroll’s picture. What 
was her duty in this unhappy matter ? To allow 
Carroll to marry under the supposition that Rosalia 
was alive, was not to be thought of. That would be 
a sin, for she never doubted but that the details of 
the sad story had come under her notice for a benefi- 
cent purpose. 

Was Carroll fit to marry even Isabel ? She felt per- 
plexed. She knew his story would never make a mo- 
ment’s difference with such a girl. It would be some- 
thing simply to be ignored. Modern innocence con- 
sists so often of assumed ignorance, that, as long as 
many girls are flattered in the continuance of this as- 
sumption, they display a facile faculty in exercising 
charity sufficient to remove m ountains if those mount- 
ains obstruct a matrimonial post-road. No, so far 
as her duty was concerned, it had to do wholly with 
Carroll. Her love and her gratitude to Rebecca, if 
she had no higher incentives, were strong enough to 
impel her to exercise any good influence she might 
have over Carroll. If Isabel’s reverses made her 
serious and awakened her from her frivolous and sor- 
did views, Carroll’s instinctive recognition of her 
complementary nature would be justified. Isabel 
could understand a man like Carroll, and Carroll, a 
women like Isabel. Blanche, if what Mark had told 
her was true, would antagonize him through the very 
best side of his nature. 

She could not in any way abuse Rebecea’s many 
kindnesses by influencing Carroll in favor of Isabel, 
whatever her personal convictions might be. Out- 
side of all these considerations, with that spirit ^ 
knight errantry still found among some men an.. 


AFTERWARD. 


451 


women, she felt she owed a duty to the memory of 
that simple peasant girl asleep in Interlachen. 

On her way down-stairs to dinner Madeline met 
Carroll. He looked particularly handsome, as he 
stood at the foot of the stairs waiting for her. Like 
almost everyone else who came under the influence 
ol her daily life, he had a warm admiration and 
respect for her. Besides, Carroll found an added 
attraction in her engagement with Mark Dasconi. 
Younger than his mother and yet sufficiently older 
than himself for him to feel all that worshipful trust 
which a younger man will often have for a woman 
ten or fifteen years his senior, he appeared at his best 
in her society. 

Madeline took his arm as they walked through the 
drawing-room. He seated her with affectionate re- 
gard. Her heart was beating violently with the 
thought of the interview for which she must seek an 
early opportunity. 

Rebecca and John declared their intention of going 
to the opera. There at her very feet, perhaps, was laid 
the occasion. 

“Are you going out to-night, also, Mr. Carroll 
asked Madeline, as they rose from the table. 

“No, as it is stormy, I shall indulge in the rarity of 
reading a new book. I will keep you company' in the 
library to-night, Mrs. Winchester.'* 

She smiled assent. She wondered if he had seen 
Isabel. He certainly carried off the unpleasant de- 
tails in the evening papers with great unconcern. 

When they were alone, and Madeline, though read- 
ing, was feeling the locket in her pocket through the 
folds of her dress, Carroll rather abruptly threw 
down his book, and went and stood by the mantel 
opposite her. 

She looked up a little gravely, even solicitously. 

“Mrs. Winchester, I want a confidant.’* 


4r52 


AFTERWARD. 


She closed her book, and, turning her chair toward 
him, replied : 

“This is a good hour for confidence.^’ 

“I want your advice about Miss Chubbock. Of 
course mother has told you all about the family dis- 
agreement in consequence of my engagement. And 
now here is this confounded failure.” 

“Have you seen Miss Isabel to-day? ” 

'“No,” and Carroll flushed slightly. “I thought it 
better to keep away till after the first violence of the 
storm had passed ; and — and I could not trust my- 
self to see her.” 

Her eyes dilated. “What a reed,” was her thought. 
Where there is undue love of pleasure, there is undue 
fear of pain. 

“Not that I would fail in showing Isabel all proper 
attention — all that sort of thing — if! She will be ter- 
ribly broken up, and doubtless she will want a little 
time to recover before seeing me. I have written.” 

“Ah I ” said Madeline. 

“You think I’m a dastardly mean fellow, I know* 
The truth is, Mrs. Winchester — I’ll be frank I ” this in 
a tone as if much redeeming virtue lay in the frank- 
ness. “Mr. Chubbock, pere, I have had to take all 
along with my eyes shut, and I may as well admit it 
to you; Ido not know how to stand that family 
under thevSe changed conditions, even for Isabel. I 
know that you are good and disinterested, and will 
see everything in a fair light. Now what would 
you do? ” 

By some strange fitness for the task in their estima- 
tion, or through the chances of her acquaintance, she 
had found herself repeatedly called upon to help a 
man to an opinion in the weightiest affair of his life. 
She tried to fancy herself or Mark calling in a third 
person. 

She gazed at Carroll so studiously and withal so 
unconsciously, that he grew uncomfortable. 


AFTERWARD. 


453 


‘^Mr. Carroll,” she said, at length, in a vibrant 
tone of Yoiee that arrested him strangely, “you will 
think it very odd when I tell you that only this after- 
noon I decided to take you into my confidence about 
a matter relating very closely to yourself.” 

What did she mean ? He gazed at her a little coldly 
and critically. It was certainly uncalled for, such a 
tone, when he had intended to pay her a great honor. 
For a young man to ask a senior woman’s advice is 
not unfrequently the occasion for inward comment 
that he has been showing extreme condescension. 

“I had a maid, while in Europe, Mr. Carroll—” 

He braced himself perceptibly. 

“Who was a Swiss peasant from Vitznau. She 
was a sad, broken-hearted little woman who was 
drowned, either intentionally or by accident, in the 
Aar, at Interlachen. She saw you on the day of her 
death, while out with me. Before her body had been 
disturbed, I took a locket from her neck.” She rose 
as she handed the jewel to Carroll. 

He openeciit, his lips set firmly together, a strained, 
wounded look on his face that showed that his first 
love had not been wholly destroyed. 

“Where were you when you saw me?” he asked, 
with a visible effort. 

“Sitting under the lindens, in the meadows in front 
of the hotels. You passed us, absorbed in conversa- 
tion with a young lady.” 

“So Rosalia was alone while watching for me 
when I drove away,” he thought, with relief and 
remorse combined. 

“Well?” he said, finally, glancing at Madeline 
with a touch of defiance. 

“I wanted you to know that Rosalia is dead. She 
has, therefore, no further claim on you.” 

Had any being in this world a right to talk 
to him thus? Even this woman, who knew, doubt- 
less, all his promises and his desertion ? Such things 


454 


AFTERWARD. 


were happening somew^here, as a matter of course, 
every day in the year. Like a clear, impalpable 
vision, but real, he saw Rosalia leaning against the 
walnut tree, and himself bowling over the smooth 
road of the gay little resort, and ever and ever reced- 
ing until that round face and those longing eyes 
were lost to sight. Had she gone thence to the 
river? 

Ifhehadnot been ashamed to do so, he would 
have fled from the room. There stood that tall, ma- 
jestic woman with a face like an angel’s, looking at 
him intently, sadly, wondering what he would say. 
He knew what must be her inevitable thought. It 
could hardly be a question with a woman like Mrs. 
Winchester whether even theChubbock family should 
consider an alliance with him. How the tables had 
been turned upon his scruples ! 

Before him rose the two faces, Rosalia’s and 
Isabel’s, one of them, though dead, attracting and 
repelling him in turn. It was an accusing face. Had 
Rosalia drowned herself for him ? That was an ugly 
thought to follow him through life. He grew pale. 
Great drops of perspiration stood out on his fore- 
head. She looked well, subdued, and heavy, as all 
the women of her class do, so early, and yet — it was 
him those hungry, quiet eyes were watching. And he 
had crossed that very river in which she had floated 
and found her death. Would the sound of its rush- 
ing current and the gleam of deep waters haunt his 
ears and eyes forever? Then Isabel gained his atten- 
tion, and the very thought of her influence was a 
relief. She would be a wife to make the picture of 
Rosalia fade into oblivion. She was a girl who 
would take such an episode for granted. The trust 
of girls like Isabel was always given with reserva- 
tions, and a man need have no scruple, therefore, in 
tacitly claiming the ground on which his honor was 


AFTERWARD. 


455 


reckoned. He felt a Horrible relief in this crisis that 
there was no one but Madeline to accuse him. So 
rarely does a third person take upon himself, volun- 
tarily, her position, that he was inclined to mentally 
justify himself, by criticism upon her want of delicacy 
and good taste. What fatality had pursued him that 
he had been overtaken with a passion for two women, 
neither of whom satisfied his ambition ? Why had 
he not kept untrameled and been content with the 
cold and negative virtues of Blanche ? 

How little could Madeline judge of all this balanc- 
ing of motives and impulses, aud least of all of the 
remotest self-justification. She only saw the pallor, 
the emotion, and hoped for the best. 

He paced up and down the room, several times. 
He came back to where she stood, at length. 

• “I shall go away, Mrs. Winchester.’’ He stood 
still, waiting for judgment. 

But Madeline had none to pass. When he looked 
up it was to meet her eyes full of grave and tender 
inquiry. 

“I shall see Isabel to-morrow. Do you think this 
sad and unfortunate affair would prevent her from 
marrying me — if — if I decided that it was advisable 
for us to be married?” 

“If I said I thought she would marry you, know- 
ing this, would it please you ? ” 

Carroll turned pale with shame and anger. It 
touched the grain of his sentiment to have Isabel 
lowered to the level of his question, let alone his 
thought, and yet this was what Mrs. Winchester 
had done. She was evidently one of those imprac- 
ticable women who held a common standard for 
both men and women. They made a man so uncom- 
fortable with their views. 

“ I admit that I committed a great indiscretion. I 
ceased to love Rosalia— and— now I love Isabel. I 
am unwilling to s.ay anything further.” 


456 


AFTERWARD. 


“I do not want your confession, Carroll; but I had 
no right to your further confidence till you had 
mine. What I have said rests between you and me 
alone.” 

He gave her a grateful look. “I believe it.” 

Then, the higher side of his nature gaining the 
supremacy, he took her hands, and said, “I want 
advice.” 

She shook her head sadly. 

“I cannot give it, except to say that personally I 
cannot conceive of outward circumstances deciding 
the question of marriage, if two persons are other- 
wise rongenial. How deep and enduring the bond 
between Miss Isabel and yourself is, you two alone 
can judge. I think she is a girl of fine possibilities — 
stronger than you are in some respects, and that if 
you do marry her you owe it to her, but also to 
yourself if you are to reverence her properly as your 
wife, to try to redeem the past before you claim her 
unqualified promise. If you do this, and she develops 
what is best in her but dormant, the waiting will 
have been worth the while for both. But, whatever 
you do, go to her and comfort her in this first sore 
trouble of her life.” 

‘‘You have been like a sister, Mrs. Winchester.” 

“Your mother was my one friend in a time of un- 
speakable need. Her son may make almost any 
claim on me he chooses. Believe me, I have spoken 
to you as I would to my own son or brother, under 
like circumstances. Good-night.” 

She picked up her book and left the room. 

There remained with Carroll a conception of good- 
ness and purity which smote across his startled con- 
science with the power of a revelation. Even his 
lovely, beautiful mother was not this kind of a 
woman. What must Mark Dascom be, if he held the 
heart, the very secrets of such a soul as his own most 
precious and entire possession ! 


CHAPTER IX. 


RUNNING THE GAUNTLET. 

A WEEK after the events narrated in the last chap- 
ter, and while Madeline was dressing to drive with 
Mr. Dascom, Jasper brought her Isabers card. 

“ Bring Miss Cbubbock to my room.” 

“ Yaas’m, Mrs. Winchester.” Jasper’s square shoul- 
ders and bushy eyebrows showed signs of suppressed 
astonishment. Madeline he could have accepted, had 
she been clothed in rags. Isabel, in satins, and with 
all the paraphernalia of wealth had always incensed 
him, as, in her effort to be patrician, she was con- 
stantly overstepping the mark. With her loss of 
fortune his contempt for her became boundless. It 
was with infinite condescension that he stepped in- 
side the drawing-room, gave her a level glance, an in- 
imitable copy of many previous ones he had seen her 
cast, and announced : 

*‘Mrs. Winchester say — if you please, Miss, walk 
up to her room.” 

If Isabel had been a hair-dresser or some other non- 
descript functionary, Jasper could not have stood to 
one side more superciliously, as she passed out of the 
room. She felt miserable. “Even servants had no 
respect for Babylon when fallen,” was the substance, 
if not the form of her thought. 

“ My dear,” said Madeline, taking both her hands, 
and kissing her gently, “excuse me a few minutes, as 
I shall have to defer an engagement.” 

457 


458 


AFTERWARD. 


“I will come again,” said Isabel, with a touch of 
genuine, even artless humility in her tone. 

“No, no. I want you to stay. I am sure I can 
give you an hour. I am very glad to see you.” All 
this Madeline said as she was leaving the room, and 
the words were accompanied with a glance so cordial 
and kindly, that Isabel sank back once more in her 
chair. 

Madeline glided down the stairs and through the 
hall to the library where Mark was waiting for her. 
“ Will you postpone our drive till an hour later? ” 

He looked surprised. What engagement could she 
have which would place him second. “Did you not 
name three o’clock?” he asked, and then they both 
laughed at the present narrowness of their various 
duties and pleasures. 

“1 did,” she said gently. “But, as we are still in 
this world, an impediment has offered in the way of 
a person I can help verymuch by doing so now.” 

“Very well. I shall be back in an hour, punct- 
ually.” 

“I shall be waiting for you.” 

She was gone as quickly as she had come, and, 
five minutes later, Isabel was seated on a lounge be- 
side her, pouring out the history of the past three 
days, for Madeline had gone to see the child twice 
since their encounter in the park. 

“It is so different, and the past seems as obliterated 
as though I had died. When I get used to it, it will 
not be so dreadful but that I can live through it. It 
is the surprises which break me down. I get all 
braced ready for them, and then they never come in 
the way I expect or through the persons I fancy they 
will.” She thought of Jasper. 

“They will come to an end, too, after a while.” 

“Yes, everything will, and I do not know but that 
this excitement is better for me. It keeps me pugna- 
cious most of the time. When we get back on that 


AFTERWARD. 


459 


farm in the mountains, board and washings at five 
dollars a week apiece,” — Isabel shut her lips till the 
dimples came in either cheek and looked blankly at 
Madeline,— “I’m sure I don’t know what the living 
can be among relatives, too! I did not know such 
people were in existence till— now I When we get up 
there — then — ” 

“Yes, then it will be hard. But your courage will 
be equal to the occasion.” 

“It may not. I shall certainly never stay there if 
I find it oozing out in spite of myself. I suppose you 
know that Jeannette is going to Europe this summer 
as companion to an invalid lady. Jeannette can 
talk French and German like a parrot — about all she 
can do — so she is disposed of. Papa thinks it will 
all be temporary — that our candle is only snuffed 
pretty short — not gone out — but I don’t know — ” 

“ What have Carroll and you decided ? ” 

“We have agreed neither to be engaged for a year, 
nor to correspond. It seems, Mrs. Winchester, he had 
an earlier love affair, and the girl is dead. He feels 
miserable over it — uncertain about his present feel- 
ings — all that sort of thing, to which I listened, but 
of which Ido not believe a single word. However,! 
I gave him his release — and a year from now, per- 
haps, he will know whether he loves me. It will not 
take me a year to make up my mind about him.” 

Madeline was nonplussed. There was not a tear 
in those clear gray eyes — hardly a quiver of the 
pretty mouth. All the latent hardness of her char- 
acter, the realism of everyday’’ life which she had 
hitherto veiled under the softer conditions of her cir- 
cumstances, was revealed. 

“I’ve made up my mind,” she said slowly, clasping 
her two hands over her knee, “that if, as a woman, 
I have to face these things alone now, I do not want 
Carroll Saxby for a husband— ever. I wouldn’t 
marry him even now.” 


460 


AFTERWARD. 


“Have you thought what you could do to take 
care ot yourself? ” 

bhe shook her head. “No, only that I must begin 
at the bottom, whatever I do. My music is a mere 
accomplishment. Perhaps I’ll take up government 
land, or study medicine, or open a broker’s office. 
If I do anything, it will be something ultra. I 
shall want the full benefit of that sort ot emancipa- 
tion.” 

“But what shall you yourself be, my dear child?” 

“Timothy Chubbock’s daughter. Nothing more, 
nothing less. The papers ought to have told you by 
this time, Mrs. Winchester, what that signifies.” 

She had spoken with great bitterness. 

“ But even as Timothy Chubbock never forgets a 
kindness, neither will his daughter.” She was soften- 
ing now rapidly. “You have been kind to me. You 
are better than anyone I have ever known; but — 0, 
Mrs. Winchester!” and she buried her face suddenly 
in Madeline’s lap, “I’m so unhappy. I can’t 
see an inch before me. I love nobody, and no one 
loves me. I have been wicked and hard all my life, 
and I feel ten times worse since these reverses than I 
ever did before. I didn’t mean to talk this way to- 
day. I meant — I meant to try to be like you. But 
it’s no use. The sooner I’m transported to that 
farm the better.” 

“See here, Isabel,” said Madeline, half shrinking 
herself from the promise she was about to make, and 
she wiped the tears away from the girl’s hot face, 
“take the summer to consider your future, and, 
whether your father should be able to support you 
in luxury or not, choose some definite and proper 
activity for your life to which marriage shall be in- 
cidental. That will come without your seeking, if 
you are intended for it. And, my dear, if you need 
assistance, whether in money, influence or protection. 


AFTERWARD. 


461 


I shall then be in a position to help you to a reason- 
able extent in any or all of these ways. Now dry 
your eyes, my child, and take courage.” 

Isabel sat up, determination shining through her 
tears. Here was something very different indeed 
from what her active mind would have embraced a 
month ago, but delightful now in - this violent re- 
action in which pride and will were struggling, and 
an object with which to beguile the monotony of the 
dreaded summer. 

“I believe I was made to lead an active, independ- 
ent life.” 

‘‘I believe” — Madeline’s solemnity arrested her 
attention — “that you were made to be a highly use- 
ful woman, and a woman therefore of great influence. 
And now, since I have given you a promise, I want 
you to make me one.” 

Isabel looked a little startled. 

“I want you to promise me that you will pray 
every night, and that you will make your choice for 
the autumn; first, after considering your special 
abilities, and secondly with a view to doing the 
greatest possible amount of moral good. Morals 
must enter into all work that women do, if they are 
to be happy in their work. In some form or another, 
child, they have to be teachers, reformers, even 
preachers. Do your part for my sake, until you do 
it because you love it, for the power it will give you 
to do good and get good.” 

The loyalty of her narrow but active nature was 
stirred. That blessed boon which all seek had, 
moreover, been given her, a friend whom she could 
both reverence and trust. She took Madeline’s 
hands, and, reaching up, kissed her and said softly, 
“I promise.” 

As Isabel went down-stairs and out, she forgot all 
about Jasper, all about the failure; it did not even 
occur to her that she was in Carroll’s home. Her 


4b2 


AFTERWARD. 


busy, hopeful little brain was projecting many a 
picture, most of them sordid and foolish, but there 
was a healthful leaven working in her heart. 

Madeline’s drive with Mark was her first appear- 
ance with him in public. She might meet no one 
whom she had formerly known, and she might meet 
many. They could hardly fail to attract attention, 
as he was almost a public character through his vast* 
business enterprises and his many philanthropies. 
Any woman to whom liis attention was given would 
have to be an object of comment. For his sake she 
wished she were less indifi'erent to what Mrs. 
Grundy might think or say. If she were, it might 
spur her to something of the social effort of her 
youth. 

If she could only have realized it, her unworldly 
repose was one other great charms to her betrothed. 
The womanly and majestic strength other character, 
the calm but intellectual sweetness of her eyes, and 
the absoluteness of her trust, her love, her depend- 
ence on his strength and care, made him rejoice more 
and more in this woman whom he had sought the 
world over to find. More and more she confirmed 
the correctness of his immediate intuition concerning 
her, and already she was inconceivably more to him 
than his fondest fancy could have hoped while his 
affections were stjll unengaged. 

It was a mild day. 

He assisted her into the victoria with a reverent 
gentleness that to her was as soothing and as name- 
less in its charm as the warm south wind fanning 
her cheeks. 

The fine grays curveted an instant, then struck 
into an even pace, and soon joined the vast proces- 
sion in the park. 

It seemed but yesterday, now that the gap of the 
intervening years had been spanned, since she was 
part of that gay, moving, ever-changing throng. 


afterward. 


463 


She looked upon the bright, beautiful panorama 
with the ever-abiding consciousness of Mark beside 
her— not only through future joy if it should be 
theirs, but through whatever sorrow might assail 
her — and she was with him, for weal or for woe, for 
better, for worse. Neither would ever stand alone 
while the other was in the world. There was but 
one road, henceforth, for them ; whether it should be 
strewn with thorns or roses, so long as they walked 
it side by side, thorns would be better than roses, if 
alone, far better than a solitary path however 
softened by flowers of ease or splendor. 

Many curious glances were turned upon them as 
they passed the equipages of one well known leader 
of fashion after another. They were conspicuously 
handsome, and, even in their high-bred reserve, too 
conspicuously satisfied, for gossips not to draw con- 
clusions. When Madeline was once seen at Mark’s 
side, that rarest of all convictions pressed itselfhome 
upon many minds ordinarily obtuse enough, that 
they certainly looked as if made for each other. 

All at once, on a wide curve, they came opposite 
Mrs. Allerton, who bowed coldly to Mark, ignoring 
Madeline; but, in that bright sunlight and with the 
carriages in such a position that their viewwas a 
longer one than usual, his sister had a dazzled, irre- 
sistible sense of his discernment. 

Madeline looked like the preconceived notions some 
idealistic persons have of duchesses before having 
seen many of those grand personages. 

Mrs. Allerton was not alone in this opinion. 
Although Rebecca’s chaperonage had brought 
Madeline little attention, it was surprising, by 
Easter, how many had found out that Mrs. Win- 
chester was back once more. “So lovely, so abused, 
too, in the past, and going to marry Mark Eascom, 
you know.” Ah, this last fact settled many an 


464 


AFTERWARD. 


abstruse question in social statics pertaining to Mrs. 
Winchester which might otherwise have remained 
forever undecided. 

It was on Easter Sunday that Mark received a 
flag of truce in the shape of a note from his sister 
who had gotten heartily tired of being let alone. 
With Blanche in a new spring costume, strong and 
fair as a lily and more beautiful than ever, it seemed 
easier to condone her brother’s “romantic foolish- 
ness,” for, by this time, what, a month before, had 
been “a social crime,” had been graded to an epithet 
capable, eventualh% of all sorts of modifications. The 
note ran in this wise: 

“Dear Brother Mark: 

“Our darling Blanche is well once more, and begs to see 
her uncle. Will you dine with us to-day atone? Ifnotother- 
wise engaged we shall be glad to have you occupy our pew 
and come home from church with us. 

“As always, sincerely and aftectionately, 

“Your sister Charlotte. 

“P. S. Mr. Allerton thinks that I was severe concerning 
Mrs. Winchester. We will talk the matter over thoroughly 
when you come. C. A.” 

Mark had an incipient nervous thrill over the 
thoroughness ; still as family harmony, at least to 
outward seeming, was desirable, he sent word that 
while unable to be with her at church, he would dine 
with her. 

It chanced that, during the service, Madeline sat 
two seats in front of the Allerton pew, but in the side 
aisle, so that Blanche could gaze to her heart’s con- 
tent. Whether it was Madeline who made the con- 
quest, or whether it was Blanche’s youthful idolatry 
of her uncle which invested everything he did or pos- 
sessed with more than mortal charms, I cannot tell, 
but she dropped her prayer-book in the middle of the 
“General Confession,” so absorbed was her admiring 
regard of the tall, elegant woman whom her mother 


AFTERWARD. 


465 


had called “Mrs. Winchester I ” in a whisper and with 
a little moue as they were seating themselves. 

When the service was over the crowd gathered in 
the aisle so closely that Blanche became separated 
from her mother, and walked all the way down to 
the door side by side with Madeline, whose brown 
eyes looked straight into the blue ones with so much 
sweetness and good-will that from that moment 
Blanche was her sworn friend and champion. 

Mark had hardly crossed his sister’s threshold be- 
fore Blanche sprang into his arms, and between her 
kisses and hugs whispered, “She is perfectly lovely ! 
You always do what is just right, Uncle Mark, 
always ! ” and the loving girl kissed him again with a 
vehemence that would have surprised Carroll Saxby, 
could he have witnessed it. But Carroll, either fort- 
unately or unfortunately, was off on the Pacific coast. 

I will not weary the reader with Mrs. Allerton’s re- 
treats and advances, with her sieges and her parley- 
ings, with hertears and her reproaches, with her final 
concessions and unconditional capitulation. When 
the surrender had finally and formally taken place, 
and the evacuation of all her illogical premises had 
been made, Mark told her that his wedding would 
occur in May at the Saxby country-seat among the 
Connecticut hills. 

“ Blanche must look her fairest,” he said, and added, 
as if the fact would be of trifling importance to his 
sister, “for Earl Molyneux and his eldest son are 
coming over. The Saxbys, yourselves, and my En- 
glish friends will be the sole guests. Madeline wishes 
the wedding-party to be small, and all the arrange- 
ments as simple as possible.” 

“She is quite right, quite right! She was always 
a woman of excellent taste, I must admit that ! ” said 
Mrs. Allerton, ad justing her eye-glasses emphatically. 
“And so Earl Molyneux is really coming over at last. 
How old is bis son ? ” 

30 


466 


afterward. 


‘ ^ Twenty-three. ’ 

Her eyes closed a little. “ Blanche will have both 
him and Carrol to entertain. Well, I hope she won’t 
waste her sweetness on Carroll. He really deserves 
nothing at her hands. Such tinge ntlemanly, shame- 
ful neglect of her during her illness ! ” 

“There will be no danger, after she sees Lord Clin- 
ton. He is an exceptionally fine fellow.” 

“Very English? ” 

“Not too English. You will like him.” 

“Well, Mark,” said Mrs. Allerton, with an excess 
of cordiality which the last item of news had elicited, 
“when a breach is healed with me, it is healed. I’ll 
take Mrs. Winchester under my wing from henceforth. 
I will go to see her to-morrow. Would you like to 
have Blanche call too ? ” 

“Certainly.” 

“We’ll all go, Mr. Allerton also. That will, of 
course, be the only proper thing.” 

Mark kissed his sister, and rising, said, “I must go 
now, Charlotte. I want to accompany Mrs. Win- 
chester to afternoon service.” 

“I am glad she is so religious. We saw her at 
church this morning. Her manner was admirable — 
so devout! I do not believe she noticed a soul till 
after the benediction.” 

He glanced at her a little strangely. He wondered, 
if Madeline chose to do so, in what way she would 
describe Mrs. Allerton ’s phylacteries. 

Madeline was however neither a modern Pharisee 
nor a Sadducee. She was simply one of that unbroken 
line of silent, worshiping women who, of whatever 
sect or creed, have followed Christ from the first an- 
niversary of his resurrection till the latest. She was, 
in many deep and comforting senses, a disciple of the 
new dispensation. 


CHAPTER X. 


. . A WEDDING. 

It was the fourteenth of May. Saxby Place was 
like a garden of the Lord in the beauty of its dimpled 
peacefulness. Its high plateaus looked down upon 
valleys smiling with richness, upon belts of timber 
containing still a sprinkling of primeval giants, 
where waving tops were penciled against stretches 
of the bluest sky, encircling in cup-like depths a 
varied and pastoral wealth, of landscape, as pure 
and sweet totheeyeas the fragrant air was soothing 
to the spirit. 

On the summit of the largest a cluster of hills, over- 
lapping one another and flowing together until their 
^ breeze-swept sides looked like a vast green velvet 
robe folding in and out and changing color in the 
light and shadow, stood §axby House. 

Not a cloud w’as in the sky. Robins and golden- 
breasted orioles rang the chimes of their tuneful 
peals in fruit and shade trees. The first comers 
among the humming birds fluttered on gauzy wings 
over the beds of fragrance in purple and white bloom 
where violets and lilies-of-the-valley hid their prayer- 
ful heads. Up from the reedy swamps darkling^in 
the hollows came the whirr and resonant murmur of 
the ephemeral life those still and teeming waters 
sheltered. From barn-yards rose on the dreamy air 

467 


468 


AFTERWARD. 


the deliberate, lazy crowing of belated cocks. Fresh, 
almost transparent foliage which the wind, the sun- 
shine and the rain had kissed into ethereal beauty 
through the short days of happy spring, rustled 
and swayed in the light breeze. The high, radiant 
light bathed the grass, the flowers, the hills, the 
homes, the villages, like flecks of cloud against the 
emerald slopes, and glanced back in joyous smiles 
from the sparkling Sound outlining the distant hori- 
zon. 

The mellow-throated bell in the tall white steeple 
of a neighboring village cut the air with twelve 
musical notes, and those waves of sound vibrated 
till they carried their message of appointment to 
Madeline. They seemed to set a thousand regal 
blooms of wisteria that shut in a square piazza in 
rythmical, stately motion, for it was under the 
shadow of their flowering that her marriage was to 
take place. 

The floor of the piazza was covered with a thick, 
eastern rug. Ferns and palms filled in the corners 
and^mingled their dark green richness with the pale 
and fragile beauty of the vine leaves still undeveloped. 
The mild perfume of the wisteria blended with the 
vibrant, mystical hum of scores of golden-backed bees 
pi unging their proboscides into the purple flowers, and 
drinking from morning till night of the intoxicating 
sweetness. Such happy, busy life, never fluttering 
an inch from the blossoms, giving depth of color and 
fervor of existence wherever their song resounded. 

Against one of the pillars, in a dress that matched 
the flowers in color, stood Mrs. Allerton, her blue 
eyes as soft to-day as the bloom on her cheeks. 
Rebecca, in a dress of palest gold, relieved at the 
throat and in the facings of the train with garnet 
velvet, stood beside Mrs. Allerton, the contour of 
her face and the splendid color of her hair making 
her look like some dream of Titian that had taken 


AFTERWARD. 


469 


on bodily form. Blanche, in the palest possible bine, 
her fair hair fairer still in the morning light, her 
sweet, clear face subdued and tremulous, was beside 
her mother. The gentlemen were opposite — Carroll 
as complacent and composed as the ocean after some 
pitiless storm in which it has caused unwonted 
havoc; Mr. Allerton, pompous, severe, and with the 
continually surprised, alert look which stupendous 
official dignity might be supposed to warrant; Mr. 
Saxby, ruddy, radiant, happy in his surroundings — 
and the English guests reticent, high-bred in their 
demeanor, and looking neither bored nor weather- 
beaten nor slovenly. Lord Clinton had the square 
and dominant English jaw, a clean-cut, manly face 
that set in relief the irresoluteness of Carroll’s too 
handsome countenance. Blanche, in one of the many 
glances she cast on the opposite side of the porch saw 
the difference, and any allusion born of years of 
girlish cherishing which she had hitherto fostered, 
was dispelled forever. In that silent interval of 
expectant waiting, she saw Cartoll as he really was. 

And now, as the last stroke of that village bell 
echoed upon the still air, Rebecca’s rector came from 
the house and walked into the extemporized chancel 
which Blanche and Lord Clinton had trimmed that 
morning with all manner of pure white flowers. 

A few minutes later Mark and Madeline came out 
alone. There were no brides-maids, no groomsmen. 
Such a train was for men and women younger than 
they. They walked unattended down that shady, 
flowery vista, at mid-day, in the high tide of their 
life, with as many fair years before them, perchance, 
as chequered ones that had glided into the silent 
past; on both faces was written the sacrament 
which had been solemnized in their vows and mutual 
love long before, and only wanted this public con- 
firmation to make it perfect. 


470 


AFTERWARD. 


Never had Madeline looked more beautiful. About 
her carriage, her expression, there was an exalted 
chasteness, a grand, unconscious dignity. 

Mark took his place at her side, resting his eyes on 
a bit of the blue sky shining through an opening in 
the foliage at the further end of the piazza, his counte- 
nance and attitude those of a man who was lifted 
above the thought of everything but this one great 
glad gift which had come into his life. 

The stillness seemed almost audible just before the 
words of the marriage service fell on the sweet air. 
Not a fan was fluttered, not a position was changed 
by the listeners, till the last sentence was spoken. 
Even then, for a minute, there was a reverent si- 
lence. 

The sunlight had found acrevice among the flowers, 
and, falling in a long, golden streak upon Madeline’s 
head and dancing in flickering radiance on the soft 
folds of her white dress, illuminated her paleness. 
Her face was peaceful, her expression p'ne of trans- 
porting happiness. 

Mark looked at her as if he had forgotten that there 
were others present, and as though some tall, white- 
robed angel stood beside him. 

So intent had been their participation in this great- 
est event of their life, that their spirit of mutual and 
perfect surrender made a veil of silence which it 
seemed sacrilege to break. 


•2 0 5 


THE END. 








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